Boosh on Mars
by Phoenix on cloud nine
Summary: My name is Vince Noir. I had an accident, and I woke up in 1973. Am I mad, in a coma, or back in time? Whatever's happened, it's like I've landed on a different planet. Now, maybe if I can work out the reason, I can get home.
1. Chapter 1

**K, I wanted to wait until after I finished 'Too small for his boots' to write this, and I think this author's note may be a long one, so buckle up ;)  
I did get a few replies on that poll, so I though "What the hell, let's do this" :) AU to the extent of I don't think Vince would _ever_ make it to a policeman, but it's the only way I could get the story to work. I didn't know what genre thing to put it under, cause it is romance, but only for a while, then at the end. I guess it's mostly drama, and I'm gonna add adventure to that, but if anyone thinks its something different, tell me by all means :) Plus, it's a T cause, if anyone _has_ watched Life on Mars, they know what a foul mouth Gene Hunt has ;) One more thing, I was originally gonna have a chapter an episode, but that would be too long and complicated (For me) so I think I may just have the episodes from the first series, with some different ones possibly from series 2. Oh yeah, I don't know how old Howard and Vince are, so for the sake of argument, and assuming my maths is right, they are both 35, so they were born in 1973.  
Disclaimer: Don't own the Boosh or LoM, happy?  
This chapter is dedicated to David Bowie, cause I was listening to his songs while writing :)**

"Colin Rhaymes, open the door please".

Howard thumped on the front door of the suspect's house. Despite the seriousness of the situation, he still had time to turn and wink at his boyfriend, and was pleased to see him blush and smile coyly back. After a few seconds of silence, Howars was forced to bang again,

"Colin Rhaymes, we have a warrant to search your house, and remove property in compliance with..."

His small speech was broken with a crash as presumably the back door was crashed open. At once, a few officers helped Howard break the door down and Vince, the lightest and speediest of them all, ran through the house and managed to climb the back wall in less than a minute and run after the ginger haired man they had been sent to arrest. Soon, he got Rhaymes trapped down an alleyway, but the man picked up a dustbin lid and approached Vince.

However much he hated it, Vince was a born fighter. All those years as being a cockney ragamuffin from the streets had given him a strong right hook and he could block attacks like nobodie's business. However, he couldn't stand fighting. Not that he was a pacifist, but he visibly paled when he thought what it would do to his clothes and hair. Instead, he got out a stick that looked like a cattle prode and said, lightly,

"Y'know, this isn't gonna look good on your arrest report". With that he struck Rhaymes' leg with it. The man fell down and Vince heard sirens as he turned and and saw his boyfriend's car speeding towards him. As it pulled up, an officer got out and immediately slapped some cuffs on Rhaymes. From the driver's side, Howard got out and went over to Vince, smiling fondly at the proud glow he had. That was one of the many brilliant things about Vince. He never got bored with his job. He always acted like it was the first arrest, still smiling proudly as he managed to stop the suspect and arrest him.

"Alright?" Howard asked lovingly, smiling at Vince as he pushed his fringe away from his eyes.

"Never better babe, you?" Howard smiled again, and pressed a soft kiss to the other man's mouth.

"All the better for seeing you, alive and well" He answered, when they were finished. This was one of the thing about Howard that made Vince love him even more than he thought was possible. Howard was worried about him whenever they went on an arrest. Not that Vince didn't worry about him, of course he id, but Howard worried even if Vince was putting the cuffs on an eighty year old woman.

"Come on, we need to interview him" Howard said, taking Vince's hand and leading him towards the car.

"Yes sir" Vince grinned and gave his superior a mock salute.

Naboo had decided to close the Nabootique ages ago, and had refurbished the downstairs which had once been the shop so it looked like an ordinary home. This meant Vince was out of a job, and even though he was Naboo's favourite, he still need to pay his rent. Howard was safe. After the whole Hitcher incident he decided to become a police officer, to protect them all, and had quickly risen through the ranks, mostly because of the awe he saw in Vince's face, which spurred him on, to become DCI. When the shop closed, Vince (Who by this time was already going out with Howard), inspired by Howard's example, trained up. He almost failed on the written exam, but promised to make it worth Howard's while if he gave him a few extra marks. Well, he couldn't really have refused him, could he? He was soon star pupil, being the best at undercover work and (Much to everyone's surprise) working things out using the evidence they had. Pretty soon, he was made DI, which was only one rank below DCI. He had his own office with a huge desk, drawers stuffed with sweets, magazines (Training to be a poilce officer hadn't exactly made him any wiser) and, yes, in one drawer there was a pot of lubricant, given the fact that his and Howard's offices were next door to each other, and sometimes Vince got him daring enough to do it in there, even though once or twice they were nearly caught.

Sitting in the car on the way back to the station, Vince ran his hand over Howard's leg, slowly. Howard swerved slightly, making Vince smile evily, and making the journey a long one.

--

"Interview commenced at 10:15am. Present are DCI Moon, DI Noir, the suspect's lawyer, social worker and psychologist," Howard spoke into the tape recorder, "The suspect will state his name".

Vince shuddered as Rhaymes glanced at him, raising an eyebrow and baring his teeth. Under the table, Howard reached for his hand and squeezed it gently, making Vince blush prettily, and he looked back at Rhaymes with more courage.

"Colin Rhaymes" He said, heavy manchester accent filtering through the room.

"Take a look at these photos Colin," Vince took over and opened a file containing photos of a younf woman, dead in the mortuary, having been garroted with some kind of thin cord, "Her name was Melissa Townshend. Kidnapped on May 3rd, held for one day, not fed and then strangled. Then, another woman, Amy Smith, kidnapped on May 7th, not fed then strangled. Apparently, you squared up to Amy and said, 'Fight me, and you will end up like Melissa'". Vince continued to feed the photos to Rhaymes, who looked away for a while.

"You're upsetting him" His lawyer argued, but Howard continued from where Vince left off,

"We have your diary here Colin," Howard said, and produced some peices of paper, "Here are some extracts," He said, motioning to them, "'May 7th, I killed her, she's been killed. I'm a killer, an ace killer'. That particular entry is not awash with ambiguity" Howard remarked, and although he didn't know what that meant, Vince smirked, knowing Rhaymes had been put in his place.

Rhaymes continued to stay silent as his psychologist argued,

"Colin is a first rate fantasist..."

"Lets talk about the night in question, eh?" Vince interrupted, "May 7th" There was a rustle of paper to his right as Rhaymes' social worker said,

"Hang on, May 7th?" Vinc felt a sinking feeling in his stomach,

"Yeah" He answered, glancing over at Howard.

"He was at our drop in centre," She said, almost smugly, "Some kids had thrown fireworks at him, he was distressed"

"I think we're done here" The lawyer said, leaving Vince to slump down in his chair, barely noticing Howard reaching for his hand, slipping his fingers through the small ones.

--

Walking back to Howard's office, Vince ranted,

"How can he get away with it?! I'm sure it was him! Why else did he put that in his diary?" Howard rubbed his arm,

"I know little man, but they have evidence that was somewhere else at the time" He soothed, and Vince, although still extremely angry, felt less rattled and smiled up at Howard, lacing his fingers into the older man's.

While walking to the office, Howard got quite a few jealous looks, as always, from various women (And some men) in the department. This always made him swell with pride as he glanced at the smaller man walking beside him, bobbing along, quite unaware of how much Howard actually loved him at this point. Vince had been so happy to be working with Howard again that he had gone back to his ways at the zoo. Of course he still wore the jumpsuits and mirrorball suits etc, but he was more, mod/electro now. He seemed to have gotten even more innocent, and was once or twice found to be dressing in ponchos. He had customised his suit that he had been told in a heated argument with his boss (Howard) that was mandatory, so while it was just a white shirt, black jacket, tie and trousers, he had rolled the sleeves up and untied the tie, like a schoolboy would do, and put badges and pins on it. He had even written 'Noir' on the front in glitter glue.

They got to Howard's office, Vince slamming the door behind them, and sat down on his sofa.

"Now we've got nothing" Vince moaned, like a small child who had their christmas present stolen.

"I wouldn't say we've got nothing sweetheart," Howard said, arm around Vince, "We've still got that synthetic hair under the victim's nails" Vince nodded morosely and settled against Howard, not wanted to go just yet. But the peaceful scene was shattered when Howard's radio went off,

"Alpha 2-4-7 report. Alpha 2-4-7. Over" Howard managed to wriggle out of Vince's grasp and answer it,

"This is Alpha 2-4-7. Yeah?"

"We've got a report of another kidnapping, over on Satchmore Road. An Eliza Dorris, friends saw her being pulled away by a tall man, apparently her top is bloodstained and was left on the swing in a play park".

"Ok, we're on it". Howard said, slipping the radio into his pocket, and pulling Vince out of the office by his hand. Just before going out of the door, he turned and swept Vince into a kiss that took his breath away (In both respects). When they were finished, Howard smiled at Vince and said,

"For luck".

--

They got to Satchmore road and stepped out of the car, Vince stepping closer to Howard in the cold. Walking under the yellow police tape, they approached the swing and Howard said to a nearby officer,

"Corner off the scene completely, and get this dusted for prints" The officer nodded and walked away, saying something into his radio. Howard saw Vince blushing and knew why, the younger man loved watching Howard being all assertive and giving orders, but at the moment, he wasn't in the mood.

"I'm going to go round the corner, see if there's anything round there," He said to Vince, and noticing that the DI was about to follow, "Stay here and see if there were any other witnesses". Vince nodded and walked off. Any other person would think that Howard was angry with them, but Vince knew him so well that he knew Howard was angry at anything _but_ him, and that he didn't want to be with Vince right now in case he let his anger out on him.

He had walked less than twenty paces when he heard a yell that he instantly recognized as Howard's, and a crash that sounded like a dustbin falling over. He ran to where Howard had gone, heart thumping in worry, and gasped as Howard was nowhere to be seen. All that was there was some dustbins on the floor, and Howard's hat (That Vince had bought him for his last birthday, insisting he looked sexy in it) was all that remained.

"H-Howard?!" Vince yelped down the alley, while more officers appeared, all talking at once, only one noticing a very pale man sinking to the floor, breath coming out in sobs,

"Guys, give the DI some space" Vince neither knew nor cared what they were saying, and fell further until he was sat on the floor, sobbing weakly into his hands. If Howard had been taken by the same person who had taken Melissa, Amy and Eliza, then it was unlikely Vince would ever see him again.

--

Later, someone had sat Vince on the front chair of their car and given him some incredibly sweet tea.

"Sir?" A young woman came up to him, "I know you want to help, but we're insisting you go home" A sob caught in Vince's throat. Home. He and Howard had moved into their own little flat together. Not too far away from where they lived with Naboo, and not too far away from the station. The policewoman wasn't sure what to do. Of course she knew Vince and Howard were together, everyone knew, they were so cute together, but she had no idea what to say to her DI. Thankfully, he sighed, and got up.

"Yeah, I'll....I'll go home and wait for a-any news"

"Would you like a lift?" She asked, concerned. He shook his head,

"No, I'll...I'll be fine, I'm gonna..." He trailed off and walked away, millions of thoughts buzzing through his head. He couldn't believe it. Howard. His one true love. His soul mate. He had never imagined they would ever be separated. He always assumed they would just be together for...well, _ever. _His eyes started to prick up with tears as he walked down the pavement, deciding to go and live at Naboo's for a while. He couldn't go back to his and Howard's flat. There would be too many happy memories there. He smiled as he remembered his last birthday. Howard had managed to get them tickets to see the Lion King in the theatre, and when Vince's eyes were streaming when Mufasa died, he had put his arm around him and nuzzled his cheek, staying that way the whole way through the performance. At the end, Vince hadn't realized it had finished, he was so caught up in Howard's face. Those features. Those gorgeous, chocolate coloured eyes, however small, were so warm Vince could never lie when looking into them. And that sexy, dishevelled hair of his. However much Vince teased him for it, Howard had known how much he loved it.

To distract himself, he turned his phone off silent and put some music on. Tapping the down button, he kept going until he found a good song. David Bowie. Fine.

_It's a god-awful small affair  
To the girl with the mousy hair  
But her mummy is yelling "No"  
And her daddy has told her to go  
But her friend is nowhere to be seen  
Now she walks  
through her sunken dream..._

Vince sniffed and crossed the road, not noticing the speeding car coming towards him.... He might just have avoided it if he was bouncing along in his normal, happy state, but he felt so lost he walked at a snail's pace. He heard a screech of tyres and finally looked to the side, just in time to see the driver's horrified face as his small, thin body made impact with the windscreen.

--

_Shocking with 200 volts. Clear!_

_BANG_

_Beep Beep Beep_

_Ok he's stable, let's get some saline in._

_Beep Beep Beeeeeeeeeeep_

_Wait, he's going into arrest again, ready! Ok, shocking with 250 volts, Clear!_

_BANG_

"Hhhhh!" Vince sat up, taking a huge gasp as he felt the ground below him and gave a huge thank-you to whoever was up there. However, he looked around, extremely puzzled. This was not where he was hit. He had been hit by a car underneath a bridge somewhere in London, while walking to Naboo's, but he looked to be in some kind of construction sight. Looking around, he spotted a car near him, so he managed to stand up and stumble over, still quite woozy from the crash.

Looking through the window, he heard a song playing on the radio,

_It's on Amerika's tortured brow  
That Mickey Mouse  
has grown up a cow  
Now the workers  
have struck for fame  
'Cause Lennon's on sale again..._

"What happened?" Vince fell over in shock as a man looked at him from the other car window. Sitting up, he realised it was another officer, but he looked like one of those really old-timey ones. With the police hat that had a chin strap.

"Did you see what happened?" Vince looked blankly at him, "Sir, can you tell me, what happened?" Vince was thinking, something slowly starting to dawn on him,

"Hang on..." He whispered, as the officer searched through the files on the passenger seat of the car,

"Says here you're on transfer from Hyde. Detective Inspector" Vince looked up at him, confused,

"What? Where's Hyde?" The officer went into his pocket and pulled out a radio,

"8-7-6-0 to Control, we've got a..." Vince was already walking off, extremely scared by now, and still desperately worried about Howard, "Hang on Sir come back! 8-7-6, Sir, come back!" But Vince had already started running, out of the construction sight and into the street.

He gasped. There were barely any cars, it didn't look like London at all, and all the cars that _were_on the street were really old, retro ones, like the ones he had always been bugging Howard to buy. His throat tightened again, but he was side-tracked by the clothes everyone was wearing. Down near Naboo's, it was more electro and nu-ravers, but everyone he passed were dressed in the kind of clothes you'd buy in charity shops. Now panicking, alot, he ran across the road, but tripped on the kerb and had to grab onto a parked car to remain vertical.

A jolt of shock ran through him as he stared at himself in the wing mirror of the car. His clothes had completely changed. He was no longer wearing his customized suit, but he had a leather jacket on, with a shirt that had flared arms and had stripes going down it, in red, white and blue. His trousers were simply black skinnies, and on his feet were some white cowboy boots. Feeling something in his pocket, he threw his shaking fingers in and drew a wallet out. Inside, there was a police badge, and a small piece of paper saying,

"It is hereby certified that (And 'Vince Noir' was typed on from a typewriter) holds the rank of Detective Inspector, and is lawfully allowed to carry out any tasks under Her Royal Majesty"

Vince shook as he read it. He didn't have a badge like this before. There was no alternative, however, to just go to the police station and see what was what.

--

He lost his breath as he walked into CID. The floor was tiled in horrible green and white squares, faded with age. There were desks in the middle of the room, trays on them piled high with files and papers, ashtrays and whisky bottles. It seemed as though time had slown down. Everyone in the room (And Vince noted there were no women there) turned to look at him. Most were smoking (Which Vince couldn't stand and had once told Howard that he'd be dumped if he ever started to smoke) and were dressed in really horrible, boring suits, much like _his_policestation. As he walked in, slowly, he accidently knocked over a tray of files from a desk. Time suddenly sped up to real time, but he continued to walk forwards, not awfully sure where he was going, and could barely register a man with short brown hair wearing a sweater vest, holding out his hand,

"DC Chris Skelton," He said, and noting the dazed look on Vince's face, he added, "Plod's bringin' in your stuff, and one of the girls'll sort out your RTA," Vince still looked around blankly, trying to work out what the hell was going on, "Hey, don't sweat it if you've had a few too many. Blimey," He said to the room, "You look like you've gone ten rounds with Big 'Enry! Someone needs to 'ave a look at you Boss! You're whiter than a ginger bird's arse!"

Vince stared around in shock as they all laughed at this. No-one in _his_office was sexist. Howard had prided himself on having the best team in the country, not one racist, sexist, homophobe etc in there.

"Hey theres that nice little plonk down in the women's department. Cartwright" Another man spoke up, with a moustache, a checkered shirt and tie.

"Oh aye," DC Chris Skelton piped up, "She could kiss it better".

"Shut up" Vince suddenly found his voice. "I don't know who the hell any of you think you are, but this is Howard's office! Look, this is where the door was, and...and over here is where the PC Terminal was"

"Who?" The one with the moustache said, "You want a constable up here?" Vince opened and closed his mouth. How thick _was_ everybody here?

"I...I need my mobile"

"Your mobile what?" DC Chris Skelton asked, puzzled,

"Phone?" Vince's face made it all too clear what he thought of everyone here, "What have you done with Howard's department?!"

"Shh, keep it down Boss" The DC said, his eyes flickering nervously toward the door. A hacking cough sounded behind an office door, and the one with the moustache sighed,

"Too late". With that, the door flew open and a slightly overweight man walked out, wearing a light green shirt and dark green tie. His trousers were just ordinary grey ones, and from Vince could see, he was wearing white loafers. A cigarette hung from his mouth and he stood like a superhero or something.

"Alright," Vince walked slowly over to him, "Ok. I get it. Surprise me. What year, is it _supposed _to be?" The man took his cigarette out of his mouth and scuffed it out on the floor,

"Why don't you step into my office pal?" With that he grabbed Vince by the scruff of the neck (Who squeaked in an incredibly girlish way) and dragged him into his office. Slamming him into a file cabinet, he held him tightly, until Vince, determined not to let this guy bully him, pushed his hands away,

"Big mistake" He snarled, and went to punch him,

"Yeah? How about this?" With that, the man punched him in the stomach, making Vince double over in pain, now slamming him against the file cabinet once again, he said,

"They reckon you've got concussion. Well I couldn't give a stuff whether your brains are falling out, Don't you _ever_ waltz into my kingdom, acting king of the jungle" His grip loosened ever so slightly as Vince's big, scared blue eyes stared into his dark brown ones,

"Who are you?" Vince asked, scared,

"Gene Hunt, your DCI, and it's 1973, almost lunctime. I'm 'aving hoops"

--

Vince sat with his head in his hands and tried to breathe deeply. Surely this couldn't be real? It must be some guys from work having a laugh? But that didn't explain the bad dress sense everyone had, and the fact that he distinctly remembered being hit by a car. And his clothes changed. But, to be fair, his clothes were genius, better than anyone in here.

"Guv?" DC Skelton burst through the door, Gene looked up from his lunch, "Y'know that bird who went missing yesterday?"

"Susie Tripper?" He asked, a grim look on his face,

"Yeah, she's only been done in down Satchmore Road" Vince leapt out of his seat, getting a curious look from everyone as he did so,

"Satchmore road?" He whimpered, but Gene cut across him,

"Dead?"

"Yep, wrung her neck like a christmas turkey" At this Vince gave an odd moan and fainted.

"Blimey, you're in the wrong profession aren't ya Dorothy?" Gene asked in disdain, but proceeded to drag his new DI onto a chair and sent DS Ray Carling (The one with the moustache) to get a plonk.

--

"Sir? Can you hear me?" Vince's bright blue eyes flickered open and he was face to face with a pretty young policewoman. She smiled and helped him up, "Y'alright?" Vince nodded uncertainly, "Do you feel like you're gonna 'eave up?" He shook his head and asked,

"Are you a doctor?" She laughed,

"I'm about as qualified as Doctor Kildaire. I'm part of the women's department," Vince nodded, not really taking this in, "Well, I'd say that you're fine. Go on Sir, off you jolly well trot" He stayed however, looking at her with a strange look on his face,

"What's your name?"

"WPC Cartwright", Vince shook his head,

"No, first name"

"Annie".

"I was _born_ in 1973 Annie," He stood up, "Hit me," She hung back, looking worried, "Go on, hit me" She didn't so he just sighed and walked away. Suddenly, he got a burst of pain in his side as she swooped in a punched him there,

"Shit!!"

"I'm sorry Sir..." She bent over him, asking if he was alright, just as Gene walked in,

"Good girl! Prostate probe and no jelly!" He looked at them both, a smug look on his face,

"Go 'ome Noir. Chris'll drive you to your place" Vince blanched,

"My place?"

"Yeah they gave us an adress" With that he strolled off, leaving a nervous looking Chris behind him.

--

"...is that why I'm here? 'Cause that's when he first struck? Cause he'll keep them for a day then strangle them, and there's that synthetic hair underneath her nails. Maybe, maybe Rhaymes knew the killer... Colin Rhaymes!! Nah, he'd still be in nappies..." Chris was looking as though he'd much rather be somewhere else as they passed Annie,

"I can take him home for you" Chris cocked his head towards Vince,

"Take him, he's yours" Annie grinned and motioned towards someone behind her,

"This is Neil" Vince nodded at him, not really listening,

"Hello Vince. Can you hear me?" He talked in a very dream-like way, making Vince pay attention. Maybe he wasn't really here? Like Vince?

"Do you want me to take you home?" Vince looked up to see a very impatient Annie in front of him. He nodded uneasily and continued staring at Neil.

--

They were stood in Vinces 'flat'. It was barely two rooms, with a biggish one containing a bed, kitchen, sofa and telly, and a small one off to the right where the bathroom was.

"I'm not mad," Vince said, partly to himself and partly to Annie, who looked quite unnerved. He sighed, "I had an accident, and I woke up 35 years in the past. Now, I'm either a...a time-traveller, or-or a lunatic, or...I'm in a hospital in 2008 and none of this is real" Annie laughed,

"Get stuffed, you've been in an accident, couple of days, you'll be right as rain" Vince shook his head,

"No, I need to get back! See Howard, he's my boyfriend..." He said it proudly, but hear a sharp intake of breath from Annie, "Sorry," He said, looking downtrodden and child-like,

"No, I don't mind at all," She said cheerily, "But I wouldn't mention it in front of the Guv, or any of 'em" Vince nodded and continued,

"Thanks. Well, he was taken, by the same person who strangled Susie Tripper! She was held for a day and then..." He stopped, knowing she was just humoring him.

"You're gonna have to work this out on your own," She joked, and made to go, but Vince stopped her,

"Thanks. Y'know, for listening and, not calling the men in the white coats" She smiled and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

--

Vince crept into the policestation early next morning, dressed in the same clothes, but a different shirt. His eyes were red, and you could tell he'd been crying. Although he'd confided into Annie that this was because he couldn't find any straighteners. Still, he'd found some gel and kept his hair as straight as he could.

"Oh you made it then" He turned to see where the obnoxious voice was coming from, and saw Gene and Chris walking down the corridor,

"We didn't think you were gonna show Boss" Chris said, cheerily.

"Where else could I go?" Vince answered dully, making both Gene and Chris glance at each other uneasily. Gene recovered first and clapped a hand to Vince's shoulder,

"Well we're honoured. Right, we've pulled in a bird, Dora Keynes. She was the last person to see the victim alive" Vince nodded, and saw that they had stopped outside the lost and found,

"So, what? You handed her into lost property?"

"Thick walls" Gene announced, "Interview can't be done in the cafeteria". Vince rolled his eyes, but decided to go along with it all, for Howard's sake. Maybe if he did this, found the killer, he could get back. He decided to gather all his strength up and be normal Vince. Pretended that he could still go see Howard whenever he wanted. So he bounced in, grinning like he didn't have a care in the world,

"Blimey, PMSing or what?" He heard from behind, but just ignored it,

"Alright Dora" He said, and flung himself down onto the chair opposite her. She smiled at him, but glared as Gene walked in, "I want you to call me Vince" She grinned,

"Are you really a copper?"

"Dunno. Do I look like one?" She shrugged,

"Well, you're too handsome to be one for a start. And you dress better than any of them, and your hair is amazing". Vince smiled broadly,

"Cheers, do you like my boots?" With that he swung his legs around to put them on the table.

"Nice" She said, and Gene burst in,

"Right, let's get down to business, shall we DI Noir?" He asked. Vince nodded meekly and gave him a cheeky grin.

"Ok Dora, when did you last see Suzie?" She leant forward,

"Last night, in me dreams" She giggled, but it was short lived as Gene came forward and threw the table out of the way with one vicious push,

"You gonna give us answers or not?!" Dora stood up,

"I want a lawyer"

"I wanna hump Britt Eklund, what are we gonna do?" Vince snorted but got a death glare from Gene who was now restraining himself from punching Dora. Deciding it would be for the best, he simply walked out of the room.

--

After sitting in the canteen with a cold cup of tea in his hands, he shakily made his way towards the cells, getting many a 'Morning Boss' as he went.

Gene was there, opening a cell and giving the person in there a filthy look,

"Your Dad's waiting to take you home" Ah, it must have been Dora. Raising an eyebrow, he wandered over,

"Why is she in a cell? She's a witness isn't she?"

"No shit Sherlock! We banged her up for obstruction".

"Right. Y'know, back in... wait, where did you say I'd transfered from?" Gene gave him an odd look, but answered cautiously,

"Hyde"

"Huh. Anyway, in Hyde I think you could have been suspended! Mind you, Howard's never suspended anyone yet, so...." He tailed off, now talking more to himself than the DCI, "Anyway!" He continued bouncily, "I need a drink" With that he made to walk off but Gene grabbed his arm,

"That's the first sensible thing you've said since you got here"

--

They entered the pub to find a man with a dreadlocks and a heavy jamaican accent behind the bar.

"Ah, DCI Hunt! And..." He looked at Vince quizzically and Gene said,

"This is DI Noir, my _esteemed_ colleague from Hyde" _Where the hell is Hyde?_ Vince thought, before focusing back on the guy behind the bar,

"I'll have a pint of bitter Nelson. Vince?" Gene looked over to him

"Er... I'll have a flirtini please" Both Nelson and Gene wore similar looks of non-comprehension before Vince shook himself, "I'm er, I'm just kidding, I'll have a... pint of bitter". He wasn't too keen on beer to be honest, but it was better than no alcohol at all. Plus, it looked to be like a 'manly' drink, and he remembered what Annie had said about the others not finding out he was going out with another man. Gene looked over and said,

"It's obvious you know something about this investigation, so give it up" Vince's mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, but finally said,

"Erm, with what I know...I could probably catch the killer" _And save Howard_ He thought, with a pang.

"Right then," Gene said, downing his beer in one, "Prove it".

--

He gathered Chris into the collator's office.

"Look for any of these names in all the files" Vince said, handing Chris a notepad that had a few names on it, complete with Vince scribblings down the sides.

"Can do Boss" Chris said, giving Vince a smile. The DI smiled back and bounded away, trying to make a good impression, trying to be the old Vince. However, that didn't make an impact with everyone, as Gene proved the following day,

"I'm gonna pull Chris out of the collator's office. It's a waste of time"

"No it isn't!" Vince yelped, indignantly

"Er, sorry, did that sound like a question?" You could tell he was wanting a fight, making Vince smirk,

"You don't scare me. _Hunt_". Gene appeared to be thinking for a moment before leaning over and growling,

"That's an interesting point you raise. Allow me to retort" With that he grabbed Vince's arm and twisted it around his back, making him cry out in pain. This only spurred the DCI on to do further damage by punching him in the side.

"Better?" He asked sarcastically, clapped him on the back and walked off, leaving Vince to gather his breath, and blink away the tears of pain and shock in his eyes.

--

"Where're you goin'?" Vince looked up to see Annie looking at him, as he walked down the street, away from the station,

"I've had it, I'm sick of it here. Somewhere out there, Howard needs me" He said, blinking back more tears, "So I'm gonna keep walking, until I get back to reali..." He stopped and gazed at the shop front at the side of him. It was a vinyl shop, stocked full of all the 'new' hits. Vince, entranced, bounded up the steps and went in, almost laughing in delight at all the music there, Bowie, The Who, Blondie, T-Rex, all the greats were in this shop. Annie smiled at Vince's gobsmacked face as he went from box to box, flicking through the at lightning speed. He gasped in delight as he saw a sound proofed box where you could listen to music,

"Vince, what are you doing?" Annie asked, amused as Vince dragged her by her hand over to it and put on a record.

"How good is this?" She smiled,

"Anything makes you happy doesn't it?" Vince's smile drooped slightly, as he remembered Howard saying exactly the same thing, back at the zoo.

"Let's put another one on!" He said, trying to take his mind off it. However, it was quite crowded in there as both him and Annie stood there, and his hand dragged against the side of the box. He cringed as he pulled his hand away.

"I hate this stuff," He explained to Annie, "It gets right under your nails..." He stopped and gazed at Annie, mouth hanging open as he realized what he had said, "C'mon!" He yelled, dragging her out and running back to the station.

--

"I know where the fibre comes from!" Vince shouted as he ran through the halls, "It's sound proofing! The killer's trying to stop them shouting!" However, Gene's face was grim, and Vince hung back when he saw it, for some reason scared he was going to be shouted at.

"Dora Keyne's coat was found on rough ground about an hour ago," He said, as Vince groaned, and as Chris ran up shouting,

"DI Noir! Boss!" Vince turned, getting used to people calling him 'Boss' and raised an eyebrow, "I found a name from your list!" Vince's face lit up in a smile as he looked at the file Chris had in his hand, "It's Rhaymes," Chris explained, "Beryl. You gave the name Colin, I thought there could be a..."

"Yeah, she's his grandmother" Vince said absentmindedly, "The statement's smudged," He whined, his childlike demeanour being noticed by everyone, who either smiled affectionately or just glared (Gene), "I need to know what she came in for!"

--

Half an hour later they were all gathered round an elderly looking woman, who was sipping tea from a cup one of the WPC's had brought in.

"Mrs Rhaymes, you came to see us 2 months ago about something. Unfortunately, our copy of that got smudged, so you need to tell us what was in it."

"I forget stuff," She said, sipping the tea some more,

"C'mon Mrs Rhaymes, think back, it could be _vital _that you remember exactly why you came". She did look like she was thinking hard, and eventually said,

"The last from, next door..."

"Oh yeah?" Gene said casually, pouring out more tea, "What about him my love?"

"Well he was playing his record player all day. Bang, crash, all night"

"So you came to complain about his stereo?" Vince asked, feeling slightly guilty, as his had gone 'bang, crash' more than once at night.

"It did the trick pet! He still lives there," She took another sip of tea, "But you can't hear a thing" At once a lightbulb went on in both Vince and Gene's heads as they ran out at the same time, Gene only pausing to shout,

"Backup to 20 Kennel Road. Now!"

--

Vince crept into the house, at once noticing all of the sound proofing around the place. A sob came from a corner, which Vince hastily made his way to,

"Dora!! Dora, it's alright, it's the police, it's me, Vince! The one with the genius boots!" Gene rolled his eyes at his DI's femininity but felt someone walking into the room. Turning around he saw the killer, who's eyes widened and who tried to run out, but Gene grabbed hold of him and punched until he was semi-conscious.

They were coming out of the house, when Vince noticed the killer (An Edward Cramer, they found out) waving from the back of a police car to a small ginger boy on a door step.

"Get inside Colin!" Mrs Rhaymes scolded as she came up the pavement. Vince could hardly breathe for a while as he looked at the small boy turn and go back into the house after being scolded. He couldn't believe it. They had been _one_ house away. Him and Howard.

--

Sat in the canteen, Vince rubbed his hands together as he thought about Howard. Sighing, he wondered if he would ever get back to him. They had found the killer, wasn't that enough?

"Hello Vince" Vince jumped and almost spilt his tea as he looked up, to find Neil, sitting on the same table as him, "Vince, if you can hear me, then I know you can wake up" Vince's eyes widened. Swallowing, he asked,

"What?"

"I am speaking directly to your subconsious. I'm a psychologist at the hospital. I'm afraid you're in a coma because of the accident. But at this moment you are surrounded by all of your family and friends. Howard's here" Vince looked up, properly,

"Howard" He croaked, tears forming in his eyes

"If you can hear me, I know that will give you strength. I must say that whatever you may be experiencing now _isn't real_. I know you can wake up. All you need to do is make that definitive step". Vince stood up, a mad idea coming to him, out of the blue. It would definately be a step, but would it be enough to get back? To Howard?

He leapt up and raced toward the door, pounded up the stairs to the roof, his heart racing. Stepping slowly onto the side of the building, he looked down. Surely throwing himself off here was a definitive enough step? He would do anything for Howard. Even kill himself. _But you wouldn't be killing yourself_ He thought, _'Cause none of this is real._

"Vince!!" He turned to see Annie running up the steps, "Vince, come away from the edge! What are you doing?" She sounded almost desperate.

"It's ok Annie! I'm in a coma! I'm gonna take the definitive step I need to wake up!"

"Vince....Vince, look over the edge!" He did so and saw Neil stood at the bottom,

"Sorry! I'm sorry! Bad joke!"

"I told him all about you! We studied psychology together at University"

"No," Vince said, tears falling down his face, "He said Howard was ok..." He prepared to jump once more, but Annie came closer,

"We all feel like jumping sometimes Vince. Only we don't, me and you, 'cause we're not cowards! Take my hand!" She reached out to him and he thought hard. It wouldn't be like him to jump off a building. And what if this was real? How would Howard cope if his boyfriend threw himself off a building? And was he really brave enough to do that? He was a coward at the best of times, but suicide?

Slowly, he reached his hand out and it was grasped by Annie. Tears were now falling think and fast, as he choked out,

"What should I do Annie?" He looked deep into her eyes, as she looked back into his, face kind and sad,

"Stay" She whispered.

**If you've got this far, god bless you Xxxxx  
The chapters might take longer than any other stories I've done, because of the length, so stay with me here! Although I think this one was so long cause of all the introduicing and what not. Ok, a few notes, with police radios, I have no idea about the numbers, so they're just made up. And I haven't got a clue about road names in London, so I'm using the ones I either made up or heard on Life on Mars :) Reviews please!Oh, and just in case you don't know, DCI stands for Detective Chief Inspector, DI is Detective Inspector, DS is Detective Sergeant and DC is Detective Constable. And sorry, but I have no idea what CID means. Any ideas? One more thing, after that I promise I'll shut up ;) I actually felt really sorry for Vince in this, and I was writing it! Lol**


	2. Chapter 2

**Ok, I know, I'm horrible neglecting the story for so long, but I'm back! Please don't shoot me! I'm gonna try for fast updates but I don't think it's gonna happen :S I am sooooo sorry for how short it was, but I promise it wasn't cause I was lazy. I just had to have this separate.  
Disclaimer: Not mine. Ooh! This has nothing to do with disclaiming anything, but Tim Minchin is amazing!!  
Anyways...**

"Howard!!" Vince shot from his sleep, close to tears, having been sure that his boyfriend was stood in that room, and was smiling at him, stroking his face and pulling his hair back. He looked wildly to each part of the dingy little room Annie had called his 'flat'.

"Howard" He croaked again, and wearily got out of bed, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. It wasn't fair he decided, to be in a coma when Howard had gone missing. Ok, so maybe he wasn't _that_ bright, he admitted it, but he was sure he would be able to solve it. Howard had always complimented him on his ability to work things out. It was just common sense he didn't have much of. He smiled slightly as he remembered all of the things Howard said about him. It was never mean about him. They'd never even had a fight. Well, they'd had arguments obviously, but they'd always been together. Two halves of the same coin. Sighing, he grabbed a cup from the side and poured what looked like whisky into it.

"Vince" Vince jumped in fright and turned towards the television where he was _sure_ a voice had just issued from. He squeaked some more as it persisted,

"Vince," He gasped in shock as he clearly heard Howard's voice from it, "What have they done to you eh? Don't worry sweetheart, I've come in every day to make sure your hair is exactly how you like it" it ended with a sob, but continued, "They said that you've got low brain activity. Well we always knew that eh?" He said, attempting a joke. Then Vince was horrified as it sounded like Howard just completely broke down, "I'm sorry, it's all my fault. I know you _can_ hear me Vince, so I want to make you happy." He sobbed, "I love you so much. I'm fine, they caught the guy who killed all those women and found me. Can you belive he lived next door to Rhaymes when he was small? Anyway, I just want you to know that whatever anyone else is saying,_ I_ don't think you tried to commit suicide Vince. That's not you. You'd be strong through all of this. You'd be the sunshine kid, nothing would get you down."

Vince thought hard, elated that Howard was fine, a bit pissed off that everyone thought he had tried to kill himself, but determined to make Howard proud. He'd stay calm and happy through it all. He'd be bouncy and smile, maybe annoy the 'Guv' just by being too happy. He jumped when he heard Howard again,

"Vince, if- No. _When _you wake up, I'm going to... I, I love you, and I had a huge speech ready, but then... I, oh fuck it. Vince, will you marry me?"

Vince dropped the cup he had been holding, and ran to the telly,

"Yes!!! Yesyesyesyesyesyesyes!!! Oh god Howard, yes! I'll marry you!" He screamed in a girlish way and put his hands to his mouth as tears fell down his face, "Howard?" He asked tentatively, after hearing no reply from the set, "Howard!!"

"I know I'm not supposed to unless you accept, but I'm going to put the ring on you now. So when you wake up, it'll be like a surprise" He finished with what seemed like another sob, and Vince looked down at his hand, wondering what the ring looked like, "I'm not allowed to stay any longer my angel, so I'll come and see you later. I love you" With that, silence fell in the flat and Vince stared at the TV in shock.

"No, no no, Howard! No Howard please help me!" He sobbed and screamed at the telly, "Please Howard come get me! Take me home, I don't want to be here anymore! Please Howard! Pl..."

He curled up into a ball at the foot of the telly and started sobbing weakly.

**Again, soooooooooooo sorry for it being so short, but hopefully you'll all understand why I had that separate. If not: I didn't really want to go from all that angsty fluff/ tears/ romance (I hope anyways lol) straight into the whole smarmy Gene Jeanie, catching villains and what not. But don't worry, I'll update soon (Fingers crossed)  
XXxxxXX**


	3. Chapter 3

**K, hopefully this makes up for the last chapter's shortness. I've not got much to say right now lol, so...  
Sorry about the long wait, _again_, but y'know how long these chapters are! Stay with me on this!  
Dedicated to..... EdibleElectricity and Debbie :) V.I.P**

Vince gazed into the cracked mirror in the tiny bathroom in his flat and sighed, his face so close to it that his breath ghosted over the surface of it. Running his fingers through his hair, in an attempt to comb it into submission (He seethed at 1973's lack of style and straighteners). He stuck his tongue out at his reflection and smiled slightly, not sure how exactly he found it amusing, but grinned. He glanced down at his left hand again and pouted as he looked at his ring finger. It made him feel like crying, but he shook those thoughts away and beamed to his alter-ego in the mirror. Howard told him that he should be the sunshine kid, so here he was, being sunshiney. Rainbows, glitter and sweets were his world right now. And when he woke up, he'd be getting married. That put a real smile on his face as he shut his eyes and squealed loudly in his head.

He _knew_ he was in a coma. And he'd seen on all those boring hospital programmes that Howard watched that people come out of them all the time. So he'd simply have to wait, listen to music, maybe solve a crime or two, drink. And before he knew it, he'd be back to Howard.

Suddenly, there was a crash in the main room, making him squeal out loud and grab the razor from the sink. That was the unmistakeable sound of a door being broken down, and now he could hear the person in his flat. He was about to creep out to face them when his cowardly side took over and he went to hide behind the shower curtain.

"Oi! Noir! Where the hell are you?!" He breathed out and remembered what he'd decided. Dropping the razor in the shower, he bounced out of the bathroom to be met by a glaring man, who already smelt quite a bit of whisky, or gin, or something. The DCI visibly recoiled at seeing Vince so happy,

"Bloody hell Noir, you were ready to kill yourself yesterday. Now you look like you've lost one pence and gained a pound" Vince looked at him doubtfully,

"I don't think so. I'd rather find about thirty quid, 'cause then I could buy a really genius pair of boots!" His eyes sparkled as he grinned at the DCI, who frowned,

"Are you a man or a bleedin' fairy Noir? And anyway, no-one buys shoes for thirty quid. I saw a good pair for about a fiver yesterday" Vince's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets,

"No way! What kind? Were they..." He trailed off, "Nah, doesn't matter, you don't really have that much style do you? I mean, have you _seen _those shoes on your feet?" He gestured down to his boss' shoes. Gene inhaled angrily, making Vince squeak and his face go into the ultimate defence mode, eyes big, face innocent, looking for all the world like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. Gene slowly put down one of his fists, that had been bunched up and raised, and breathed out heavily,

"Get in the car, we've got a situation down at the station" Vince smiled cheekily and said,

"One sec, I need to find my boots," Gene growled but pointed at a pair on the floor, "Nah, not them, I think I need more of an ankle boot today, these trousers don't really suit cowboy boots. Whadd'ya reckon?" Gene snapped,

"I don't bloody care if you go in with pink bunny slippers on, stick something on, and get in the car!" He screamed in his new DI's face. Vince whimpered and stuck the cowboy boots on, frowning all the way out of the flat at his legs.

--

"Annie! AnnieAnnieAnnie!!" The WPC turned, hearing her name being called as if she was the person's mother,

"Morning Sir!" She said brightly to Vince, almost laughing at his enthusiasm, and bit her lip as the guv hit him around the head as he was about to run up to her,

"Don't touch my hair!!" He yelled at Gene before skipping over to her, "Hey Annie, guess what?!" She shrugged and tried not to make eye contact with the guv, as he was currently debating whether or not to come over and knock his DI's head off.

"I'm engaged!!" He squealed, making her squeal in a _very_ similar way and throw her arms around him,

"Congratulations! Is it, y'know," She said, lowering her voice so that no-one else could hear, "Howard?" He jumped up and down and nodded, making her smile,

"When do I get to meet him then?"

"You don't. I mean, not in a mean way or anything, but I'm in a coma, so when I wake up, you'll be gone and I'll be able to get married to him! He asked me last night, through my telly" During all of this, Annie was nodding in a concerned way, but even from knowing him for a day, she knew he could get quite emotional and fragile. He almost jumped off a roof the other day for god's sake! So she smiled and said,

"Well, that's fantastic Vince!" He nodded happily, before having the scruff of his neck grabbed and was suddenly pulled into the office.

"Right you, to make up for your show of femininity back there, you get the main case of the day" Gene said, in a sarcastically thrilled way. Vince couldn't wipe the smile off his face, after telling Annie he was engaged, it all suddenly seemed more real. He was getting married! His boss shoved a file into his hands and snarled,

"Lucky for you, I'm in a good mood today" Vince raised a disbelieving eyebrow, which Gene chose to ignore, "You know why? Because we managed to catch an ignorant little scroat called Kim Trent" Vince sniggered,

"Is he a man?"

"Yeah" He snickered again and got a questioning glance from Gene,

"Sorry, just sounds like a girl's name"

"Right. He's done loads of armed robberies, post offices, banks, bookies. You name it. So you have the job of interviewing him. Take Chris, he can take notes for you" Vince rolled his eyes but nodded and bounded off.

"Chris!" The DC turned to see Vince bouncing up to him,

"Yeah Boss?"

"C'mon, we need to go interview some guy called Kim" Chris raised his eyebrow but followed his superior down the corridor.

--

"What're you doing?" Chris asked, as Vince pressed a button on the tape recorder.

"Taping what happens. It's better than writing it down". Chris looked to be storing this information for later use, as Vince started the interview,

"So Mr Trent, what're you doing back in London? Getting ready to rob somewhere else?" Trent looked at Vince with a murderous look on face and said,

"I'm visitin' my auntie" He sneered at Vince, who sat back in his chair, slumping down casually,

"Really? So if we went to your little meeting place you got arrested at, we wouldn't find," He stopped for a second, sifting through various papers on the desk, "Your friends Kevin Briggs or 'Brigster' or Freddy Washington waiting to do one last job together before you leave?" Trent shook his head, still sneering as Vince was getting a bored look on his face and started picking at some loose thread on his shirt. After a few minutes of silence, Chris piped up,

"Er, boss?"

"Mm?" Vince jerked his head up, evidently having been lost in his own thoughts, "Oh, yeah, er..."

"Don't strain yourself there Noir," Gene banged into the room, making them all jump slightly, "So Trent, why're you here?"

"Cookery classes. I'm havin' it off with Fanny Cradock" Vince couldn't help giggling, making Gene throw him a filthy before turning his attention back to Trent,

"I think you're a dirty liar Trent" With that, he thrust his hand into Trent's face. Vince gasped, never seeing someone being interviewed be hit before and leapt up, grabbing Gene's arm,

"What the hell are you doing?!" He asked angrily. Gene turned, his face calm and in no way out of control. This made Vince relax for a second before the guv grabbed his arm, twisted it around and dragged him out of lost property. Once out, he threw Vince to the wall and growled,

"I'll tell you what I'm doing you little prick, I'm trying to get some ruddy answers! They won't tell you anything if they're not scared of you!" Vince blinked and whimpered,

"You messed up my hair" Gene narrowed his eyes,

"Let me tell you something Noir. I could just about cope with your _happiness_ (He spat this word out) and your bloody girly ways, but you _ever_ question how I do things, I will make sure that for the rest of your life you'll have to eat through a straw!" WIth that he barged back into the interview, leaving Vince stood, stunned against the wall, trying to fluff his hair back up.

--

Half an hour later, Trent was walking out of the police station, whistling happily, with his hands in his pockets.

"We'll see you back here tomorrow," Vince yelled down the corridor after him, "When we have more evidence," Trent continued to whistle until he had rounded the corner and was out of sight. Vince looked up to see Gene stood right next to him, "We will get him," Vince said slowly, "But we need it to be water tight". Gene looked as though he was about to spit on him. Vince tried to look him squarely in the eye, but was unable to, the man's eyes practically had sparks shooting from them. After what seemed like hours, Gene simply sniffed and walked away slowly.

Vince just shrugged and bounded off, bumping into a cleaner as he did so, making a ring off one of her fingers fall off,

"Shit, sorry!" Vince apologized as she looked up, still smiling,

"Don't worry about it Sir! It's always falling off! It's my engagement ring" Vince nodded sadly and said,

"Oh cool, congrats, when's the wedding...er?"

"December, and my name's June" He smiled at her and nodded,

"If I was you I'd take it back to the jewellers, get it re-measured" She grinned and nodded, thanked him for his advice and went on her way. He walked with a bit more bounce in his step (If that was possible) as he was reminded that he was going to get married! He just had to live here a tiny bit longer, and then he could go home.

--

He was stood at the front of the dinner queue (Which was growing steadily longer as he pondered) and looked down at the food with some disgust. Usually he and Howard would go into dinner together, and he'd use some of the old Noir charm to get them both huge portions. But all of this food looked like crap compared with what he got back home. He couldn't help but giggle at the dessert menu. What the heck was _spotted dick?_

"Have you decided yet?" The WPC that he knew worked behind the front desk and knew only by hearing other people talk to her that her name was Phyllis. Her voice had a very bored tone to it, and he could hear tuts from behind him, but stuff him, apparently, he was superior to all of them. Unless Gene was there, but Vince guessed he'd be the type to barge to the front.

"Sir?" She upped the tone of her voice slightly, making Vince jump, pulled out of his thoughts,

"Erm, yeah, I'll have... er, what's _that?" _He asked, pulling a disgusted face as he pointed at what looked to be (In his opinion) cat sick.

"That's lasagne" She answered, in a voice that suggested she thought he was just a tad retarded. Suddenly, the door was thrust open and Gene busted in,

"Noir! Robbery in jewellers in process!" Vince dropped his tray and ran after the guv, praying to god it wasn't Trent, because if it was, Gene would probably rip his head off.

--

Vince sat in the guv's car, clutching onto the sides of his seat for dear life. Gene was a madman when it came to driving, and had appeared to be disgusted when Vince hadn't registered how good his car was. He had just shrugged and said, "So?" When Gene had remarked proudly that it was a such-and-such type of car with so much boot space, and it went from nought to whatever in thirty seconds. Like Vince cared. He couldn't even drive.

They swerved up to the jewellers and Vince was flung forward as Gene slammed the brakes down. They heard the shop's alarm going off as they both leapt out the car and just as they were running towards the entrance, three men wearing stockings on their heads and all three holding guns were running away from the scene.

"Oi! Stop right there you scumbags!" The 'scumbags' simply pointed their guns toward both officers, who had to dive into a car that was parked on the road. Vince was absolutely terrified as the bullets penetrated the windscreen and glass flew over him as he was lying with his arms covering his head in the back seat. Soo though, the firing stopped and Gene grunted slightly before getting up cautiously, shaking the glass off as he did so,

"You alright? Breathing?" Vince nodded, gasping slightly, the adrenaline still working it's way through his body. As he started to relax however, a body slowly fell sideways from it's position in the drivers seat of the car.

"Oh my god, June!! June, can you hear me?!" Vince cried out as he recognised the girl from the station earlier that day.

--

"Jesus, be careful with her" Vince nagged the ambulance driver, who was in fact being very gentle with the stretcher, but Vince had to let out his frustration on someone. As the ambulance drove away, it's red lights flashing and it's siren going, Vince silently screamed into his hands, June's blood still on them. He slowly pulled his hands away and walked over to where Gene, Chris and Ray were stood.

"You've got her blood on you" Ray remarked as Gene looked at him in disgust. Vince pulled out the little mirror he kept in his pocket and saw the blotches of blood scattered over his face. He wasn't particularly squeamish, but this was just a little too much, making him turn extremely pale and stagger against a wall, vomiting on the pavement next to it. To his surprise, he felt a pair of hands holding his shoulders as he was retching, and very slowly started patting his back, hesitantly. He finished and wiped a shaking hand against his mouth and looked up to see Gene staring back at him, concern actually glistening in his dark eyes,

"You ok Vince?" Vince nodded uncertainly and Gene nodded, "I'm not gonna go on at you for this," He said, waving a hand in the direction of the blood left on the floor, "But I will, if you don't get Trent arrested and have this case 'water tight' within two days. You got that?" Vince nodded again and Gene left, nodding his head towards the car when he passed Chris and Ray.

Vince unsurely made his way past the alley it had happened in and walked past a man with a hearing aid in, picking up litter, pushing around two huge bins. Vince shook his head sadly, remembering Howard's old job, and his 'street crew'. However, as he passed the man, he saw a huge dent and scratch in one of the bins. His brain working so much that it hurt, Vince pulled up next to him, flashing his badge at the man causing him to stop and look worried,

"Something happen to your cart?" The man wouldn't look him in the eye, and his flicked about uncertainly, "Relax," Vince soothed, "What's your name?"

"Lenord" Vince nodded and said,

"So what happened to your cart?" Again, his eyes flicked nervously from side to side, before he finally answered,

"It was a...a threat. I saw them, I saw one of them without their mask on and..." Vince nodded reasuringly and said,

"If I gave you protection, would you be able to identify one? If he couldn't even see you?" Lenord finally looked him in the eye. He swallowed slightly but nodded, making Vince grin and take his arm to take him to the station.

--

"Pull Trent in" Vince said to the guv, as soon as he and Lenord got in.

"Blimey you've changed your tune. Got any evidence?" Gene asked, mockingly, but he had to admit that Vince gave some pretty mean withering looks, as he replied,

"Not yet" The guv simply raised an eyebrow but all to gladly went to arrest Trent.

--

An hour later they were stood in the _canteen_. People were still having their lunches and they had a line-up in the _canteen_. Vince rolled his eyes as they got a few officers to stand in the line, next to Trent, as Lenord looked down the line, slowly. Vince saw his eyes widen as he recognised Trent, but he kept looking down the line until stuttering,

"It...it's none of 'em" Vince heard the guv make a small impatient noise behind him and said,

"Are you sure about that?" He could have sworn that out of the corner of his eye Trent pursed his lips at Lenord slighty, as if blowing him a kiss,

"I said it's none of them!" Lenord said, with some force, and stormed out of the canteen. Vince groaned and ran after him, before Gene could knock his block off.

"Lenord! Lenord!" Lenord turned hesitantly, and fixed Vince with an uncertain glare, "Look, I didn't know it was going to be like that. How about we do it a different way? If we let him go for the night, bring him back in the morning, then, you can come in and..." Lenord's eyes widened once more,

"But then he'll get me! He'll come for me!" Vince shushed him and rubbed his arm,

"Don't worry, I've thought of something. Annie!" He shouted over to the young policewoman stood talking to a PC, she looked up and smiled, before saying goodbye to the PC and heading over,

"Hello Sir, who's this?"

"Lenord, Annie. Annie, Lenord" He said, introducing them. Then, drawing Annie to one side, he said, "Lenord's the key witness in the jeweller robbery. He needs protection for the night, would you be able to stay with him? You'll have full backup, an unmarked car outside the house?" He trailed off, a questioning/pleading tone in his voice,

"Have you squared this with the guv?" Annie asked, amused. Vince shook his head, just as he heard a loud, obnoxious voice behind him asking,

"Haven't squared _what_ with me, DI Noir?" Vince jumped half a mile in the air, but breathed evenly and turned to face his boss,

"Guv," He started, noticing it was the first time he'd called his superior that. Maybe he could start calling Howard it?..., "Guv, Lenord needs protection while we find a way to stop him feeling intimidated by Trent. So Annie's gonna go home with him, and Chris and Ray are gonna sit outside the front of the house in an unmarked car. Sound good?" Gene glared at him, and Annie took this as her prompt to leave.

"Fine," He spat, "But if this doesn't work, you'll be replacing June in that hospital bed" Vince gave a shout of bitter laughter as he walked away.

--

"You alright Annie?" VInce spoke into the radio in the station, being manned by Phyllis as Annie had a walkie-talkie with her.

"Fine. Well.... It's probably nothing, but I heard a noise round the back, I'm going to check it out" Vince leapt for the radio,

"Annie wait! First go out the front. Are DC Skelton and DS Carling out there?"

"Chris and Ray? They've not been here for about an hour. Look, I'm going to...Argh! Lenord, wait, argh!!" Vince jumped as he heard the screams issuing from the radio and shouted to Phyllis,

"Try and get hold of her!" as he ran out the door and down to the pub.

--

"You were supposed to be watching them!" Vince slammed through the door and found Chris and Ray stood there, playing darts with the guv. Gene looked round with a bored face, but narrowed his eyes at Vince's scared expression,

"They went there. To Lenord's. And Annie's there" Gene threw one more dart at the board and accompanied his DI to the station.

When they got there, Phyllis was still trying to get in touch with Annie,

"I've re-routed all available officers, and every car is at that estate guv," Phyllis said to Gene, "But she shouldn't be there on her own!". Gene could tell Vince was staring daggers in his back and turned to face the smaller man,

"Don't blame me you little prick! If you're so worried, take a car and get down there! I'll be along when I've gotten the others out the boozer" Vince blushed,

"I can't go". Gene's eyes widened,

"Why? You too scared of three men who can just about manage a spastic and a bird?" Vince shook his head,

"I can't drive"

--

Grumbling, Gene pulled up outside the estate, having to have gone straight there rather than go back to the pub.

"RIght, get out then" Vince nodded and got out, but jumped to attention,

"Guv I can see Annie and Lenord! And..." He trailed off, seeing Trent and who were undoubtedly the guys who had helped him rob the jewellers were running after them. Without another word, Vince ran off.

"Annie!" Annie turned to see the Di and nearly cried with relief, she doubled back, holding onto Lenord's arm, and almost lost the men, but as she came up to Vince, they found her again, and started forward, one carrying a huge chain, another carrying a plank with nails sticking out of it.

"Give him up copper" Trent sneered, slowly walking toward Vince with a gun in his hands. He had been backed up against a wall, with Annie and Lenord behind him, and was now extremely unsure whether he was going to come out of this alive,

"No way! And even if we did, we can arrest you anyway for threatening an officer" Vince said, trying to remain cool and collected, but Trent saw the gleam of fear in his eyes,

"No I can't. There'd be no-one to prove it. You've got no back up, no-one to miss..." As he said this he was hit over the head by a fire extinguisher as Gene snuck round the corner. The other two men instantly dropped their weapons in surrender and Vince gave a shaky grin to his DCI,

"You took your time!" Gene shrugged but managed to smile back slightly as Chris and Ray hauled Trent to his feet and fixed cuffs on the other two.

"Wait!" Lenord said, and walked uo to Trent. He pointed at him and looked back at Vince, wondering if he'd understand. Thankfully, he did, and grinned broadly at him.

"I think it's water tight now" He said to Gene, grinning cheekily as the DCI growled and told him to shut the hell up and get in the car.

**Ok, I think I was going to have some fluffy angsty stuff at the end, but to be honest, I can't be arsed, and I've got a maths exam tomorrow, which I need to revise for :( I promise there'll be more Vince/Howard (Somehow, it's kinda hard when one of them's in a coma) in the next chapter. Promise ;) Oh yeah, I don't think I got the right names for Trent's two friends near the beginning, cause I couldn't be bothered watching it, so just ignore that ;) But if you know the right names please tell me :P  
P.S, Shan, my mum said she sends her comiserations or something like that, and she wants her umbrella back :P**


	4. Chapter 4

**Sorry it's been abandoned for so long :s Hope ya enjoy it anways, I made the street name for the flats up (Liar! Ok, I stole it off Life on Mars, but I don't think they're coming to sue me anytime soon)**

Vince slept fitfully in his run down, trampy excuse for a bed, as the telly blared at him; not sound-wise, but with the image of a little girl holding a clown. He had left it on, in the hope that Howard would talk to him again, but nothing had happened. He had spent the whole night sat in a moth bitten chair listening to some man talk about algebra. Not understanding any of it, he soon tuned out, and had decided to just go to bed.

"Vince".

Nothing happened as the man on the bed slept. He wasn't that much of a deep sleeper, but for some reason this didn't spark any sort of waking. A sigh issued from the telly, as whoever was talking through continued, hoping Vince could hear them,

"The nurse said it might help if I talked to you. She didn't say _what_ it would help, but I'm going to. Can you believe they had to take your ring away for it to be cleaned? Said they didn't want to risk an infection. I didn't really argue, 'cause I don't know what I would do if you did catch anything. You've never really been ill before have you? I remember you had a cold once, and you moaned constantly, coughing and sneezing everywhere. Then one night, you shut up and crawled into my bed. Quietest night of my life. You even stopped sniffing in case you thought I woke up. I wasn't asleep though. How could I, when the most gorgeous person I know was sleeping right next to me?"

He sniffed and tried to continue in that same, upbeat voice,

"Anyway, I've been given compassionate leave, so I'm going to spend most of my time here. Either that or at Naboo's. I can't go back to our flat, not with all those memories. Oh god, I'm making it sound as though you've died. You're not going to, you hear me Sir? You're going to keep fighting, and then when you wake up, you'll be getting married! Well, if you accept, but Howard Moon is a hard man to push away, you won't get a moment's peace off me. So you keep fighting ok? You keep fighting…"

The voice tailed off, until the flat was left in silence. Vince curled up in a small ball, tears cascading down his face until the sheets of the bed were drenched. He had woken up halfway through Howard's desperate, heart-wrenching monologue and hadn't said a word, knowing Howard couldn't hear him, and didn't want to say anything in case somehow it would wreck the moment, as if it would suddenly break the telly, and leave him in complete loneliness once more.

**--**

"Noir, get your glittery backside in the car, you're hurtin' me eyes!" The DCI bellowed as Vince sashayed into the station, wearing a glittery jacket that had gold shooting stars down the back that he had found in the wardrobe. Vince pouted at him,

"This is better than anything you could ever wear," He challenged. Gene ground his teeth and shut his eyes, "What're you doing?" Vince asked curiously,

"A number of things that my complex brain can handle, whereas yours would implode as soon as you thought more than two things" Vince stayed silent as Gene raged, not knowing whether he had meant it or not.

When someone implied he was stupid, they either smiled to show they weren't being serious or added, 'just kidding!' at the end, as Vince was extremely good at turning on the waterworks and making people feel guilty. Fair enough, he didn't particularly _like_ the Guv, but he wanted to be liked by him. Also, being told that he was stupid was a bit of a red spot for him. Howard had sometimes joked he was a 'simpleton', and yeah, he wasn't _that_ bright, but Howard had always told him he was clever in so many different ways, making Vince shine whenever he said that.

"Did you mean it?" He asked quietly, breaking into Gene's rant,

"Were you even listening to anything I was saying?" Gene grumbled, before saying, "You might be brighter than some of the nonce's we 'ave in 'ere". Vince's eyes sparked up before asking again,

"So what _were_ you doing before, when you shut your eyes?" Gene growled but said,

"I started a new policy of counting to ten every time you say something I hate" Vince scrunched his nose up, thinking.

"But I've seen you doing that all morning".

"Exactly," With that he went over to his car, "Get in the car Vince, we've got a murder on Queen Mary Road, in Dalston". Alarm bells started going off in Vince's head,

"W-what? Queen M…"

"Oh shut it Gladys and go back to your knitting"

"What knitting? Who's Gladys?"

"Oh for god's sake".

--

The Guv finally swerved to a halt and Vince shakily got out, mostly because of the disturbing driving but partly because the 'factory' they had been called to would be made into a block of flats in thirty years. He and Howard would fall in love with one and rent it, not buy, because they both had a dream of buying a small house somewhere. Although Howard's house would be in the wilderness somewhere, while Vince would rather have one in France, preferably close to Disney Land.

"Vince, wake up!" The Guv yelled, making Vince jump and shake his head, to get rid of any home-sickness plagueing him and bounced towards Gene, Chris and Ray. The latter looking pissed off that the colourful DI had joined them.

"So what happened?" Vince asked. Ray rolled his eyes at the obvious question which Chris answered, with a cheerful smile at Vince,

"Some bloke got jumped on finishing his work, blood all over the place" Vince nodded, bracing himself. It was bad enough when everyone saw him throw up when he had some blood on him, but if there was so much blood he might actually faint, he didn't think he would ever be allowed to forget that. He looked up to the building nostalgically,

"What kind of factory was- I, I mean _is,_ it?"

"Cotton mill," Annie said, having come up to them when Vince was asking the question, "It's an 'orrible one in there boss," She stopped as Vince looked curiously at the woman attatched to Annie's arm, sobbing, "This is Tina, she was the one who found him" Vince nodded and smiled at her,

"Don't worry Tina, we'll get to the bottom of it. Did'ya know him?" She nodded, sniffing in with shuddering gasps,

"His name's Jimmy Saunders, he worked late all the time, thought it was the future. Only the coolies were ready to do that" Vince gasped at her comment. How racist was everyone in 1973? Vince almost giggled at the thought of declaring he was engaged to a man. What would have happened if Howard was black? He shuddered. He'd probably be beaten into the ground.

"Vince! Get a move on!" He turned to see the guv gritting his teeth and yelling. Rolling his eyes, the DI followed him. What was with this guy? Why did he insist on being so...so... _mean_? Well, he wasn't all bad, Vince thought, climbing some very familiar steps, he had yet to completely beat the stuffing out of him.

As they stepped into the huge room, full of cotton looms, Vince gasped. This was their floor. Thinking extremely hard, Vince managed to stutter out the floor plan,

"There were three flats on this floor, and next to this must have been the...the bedroom, and then..." They approached the body, which was sprawled directly where his and Howard's bed would be.

"Oh my God.." Vince murmered. Howard might be in their flat _right now_, maybe getting some fresh clothes or something. And now there was a body on the bed, dripping blood on the carpet and duvet cover Howard was so proud of and kept very clean. A wave of nausia swept upon him, and, although he hated himself for it, couldn't help but surrender to the darkness and just let his body crumple onto the floor, or at least he would have, if Gene hadn't have been stood right behind him,

"Woah, what's wrong with you? Vince, come on, chop chop, rise and shine! Jesus," He grumbled to himself, having to lower his DI to the ground, "It's only a bit of blood. The WPCs make less fuss than you".

--

Vince had been woken up by a huge jug of freezing cold water being tipped on his face. Gasping and choking, he sat up, sopping wet.

"You nonce!" He yelled at Ray, who appeared to have taken great pleasure in it, "My hair's ruined! It'll never be the same again!" With that, he leapt up, attempting to grab Ray by the neck or something, but the sight of the body was still fresh in his mind, and he wobbled slightly, threatening to fall yet again,

"When you two have quite finished!" Gene broke in angrily, but gently pushed Vince upright, "We have a murderer to catch!" Vince glared at Ray, and stormed off. Stumbling down the stairs, he stopped, clutching the bannister for support and gasping, for a moment almost being able to smell Howard's warm, homely scent. However, he could hear the others stomping down the stairs so got a hold of himself and brought his mind to a more pressing matter. His hair. Walking down the stairs he sighed, digging into his pocket for the comb and can of hairspray he kept with him. Getting to the bottom, he was spraying it everywhere, when Ray barged into him,

"What's this?" He asked disgustedly

"Hairspray," Vince answered, "I need to boost my hair back to it's former glory" Ray rolled his eyes and as he walked away Vince was sure he heard him mutter, 'poof', but didn't let it bother him. He was right after all. When Chris came down, Vince grabbed onto his arm,

"Boss?" Chris asked

"Ray doesn't like me does he?" He asked, in an almost broken-hearted tone,

"Well, I mean..." Chris was struggling, "He was going for the Inspector when you came, so you sorta..." He trailed off, "Nah, he hates your guts Boss" Vince nodded, expecting it,

"And you? What do you think of me Chris?" The young constable shrugged,

"I dunno. I don't understand most of what you do, or why you have to keep goin' against the guv" Vince grinned, remembering what Howard had said to him,

"I've gotta keep fighting Chris" He then proceeded to attack his hair with spray once more, making someone behind him choke,

"Noir, I don't know what the hell you're doing, but stop it!" He appeared out of the spray, coughing, "Right, I've got a hunch about who did it. I reckon it was Ted Bannister" Vince raised his eyebrows. They had quickly gone through the crowd of workers, Ted seeming to be the one who was more involved in the factory than anyone.

"And how are you gonna prove that? You pulled forensics out!" He had indeed done this, pushing the man out of the way who was photographing the body,

"No shit Sherlock! And anyway, I've got one golden rule with cases like this. Whoever spoke first did it," Vince frowned, confused, "Get over here" Gene growled, pulling him by the collar over to a huge crowd of workers who expected to be able to get in and work today. When they approached, the workers all stopped talking, apart from one, who turned to face the officers and said,

"It was robbery you know. Load of blokes round here knew Saunders had money" Gene grinned triumphantly at Vince,

"Is that right Mr Bannister?"

--

"Why are we bothering to keep all of the workers in?" Vince asked, determined to annoy the guv with his endless questions until he got an answer, "All you're doing is asking where they live and if they knew Saunders. That's hardly gonna help is it?" Gene turned to face him. They had been walking down the corridor, in the direction of the canteen (where they had been keeping all the workers) and Gene had had enough,

"Tell you what, since you're obviously getting rather bored with this enquiry, asking the same tedious question again and again, how about you have something else, to keep you busy" That last part wasn't a question, but an order. Snarling, completely sick of 19 bloody 73, Vince just turned on his heel and stormed off down the corridor. Why did the guv have to be so horrible? Couldn't he tell how hard it was for Vince to adjust to all this? _Well, obviously not_, Vince thought with a laugh, _he doesn't know I'm from the future. _

No sooner had he thought all this he was vaguely aware of the sounds of thumping boots down the corridor. In his head, Vince quickly ran through everyone in the station and what shoes they were wearing that day. Wasn't the guv wearing huge....?

THUMP

A fist connected with the back of Vince's head. Dazed, but still concious he turned to find that it was indeed the guv who had punched him. Rubbing his head, he managed to blink away tears before the DCI saw them, but was still so shocked that he didn't do anything back. Gene seemed slightly disappointed at this, and leant forward, growling in Vince's ear,

"Next time you dare question the way I do things or refuse to do what I tell you, I will make sure you will never be able to walk again. Capice?" Vince nodded, the back of his head throbbing, trying to get some air back into his lungs, as he was finding it very difficult to breathe.

"Right. So, while me and Ray handle the factory murder, you and Chris can get to work on the weapons found inside the boot of a car we stopped for speeding. Meanwhile, you!" He yelled at Vince, who was attempting to creep away again, "Follow!" He snarled at Vince, who scurried after him, rather frightened of what the guv had in store.

Gene went to his office and sat down behind his desk, feet swung up to go on the table. The other officers in C division were already in there, some (Particularly Ray) rolled their eyes to see Vince come in, and hop up to sit on a small, hip length bookshelf. He looked around at all the serious faces and furrowed his eyebrows,

"What're we all doing here?" he asked, and just at that moment, another man came into the office. He looked around as though he was King of the office, and waltzed up to Gene with a very smug grin plastered on his face.

"Morning Gene, thought you might like to see the headlines of the paper" He threw it to the guv who caught it with a very sallow look on his face and glanced at the paper. From where Vince was, he couldn't see what was on it, but it was presumeably about that man,

"Well it makes nice publicity don't it Litton?" The guv said, adressing the man Vince guessed whose last name was Litton, it wouldn't be like Gene to use someone's first name, "Crime squad manageing to prevent a crime rather than going in and shooting everyone" Litton's smug smile was wiped off his face as Gene sat there, completely unimpressed. He turned to go, but was stopped by a giggle from the corner.

"What?" He asked Vince, who bit his lip as the tall man loomed over him, "Did you find that amusing?" Vince shook his head, but said,

"I'm just laughing at your outfit. I mean, what's going on there?" He exlaimed, pointing at some weird bow tie on Litton's suit, "How moth eaten do you look?" Vince trilled, and curled his toes inwards as the man looked to be about ready to throw a mean punch. Amazingly, Gene was suddenly in between the two of them and said,

"Listen Litton, we're busy, so if you wanna beat my DI to a pulp, by all means do, but wait until after we've solved a murder. Which I think is _slightly_ better than meeting the mayor of some small village" He spat, throwing the newspaper back at Litton.

When the door slammed shut, Gene gave Vince an odd look, but said nothing, before turning to the other officers and saying,

"Right you lot, we're gonna get this murder nailed today! Got it? I want Bannister cuffed by tea time!"

--

Vince pulled Annie by her hands up the stairs to the cotton factory.

"Vince slow down! Why are going here?" He looked over his shoulder as they ascended and answered,

"'Cause the guv said he was going to try and find the knife that killed Saunders. So that means he'll probably be..."

"Planting one in Ted Bannister's locker?" Annie interrupted. Vince grinned,

"You read my mind". As they got nearer the right floor, they could hear the faint sounds of lockers crashing open. Vince jumped the last few steps and got into the room to find it looking like a torture chamber for lockers.

"Guv!" Vince shouted over, seeing the obnoxious prick in the middle of the chaos. The man waved happily (But rather sarcastically), "What're you doing?! What if you wrecked any evidence in there?"

"Oh, I think I may just have a stroke. Wake up Vince, no-one cares about evidence" Vince rolled his eyes and started a small stroll of the room, circling various places, much like a dog would when it's found something interesting there before. Gene sniffed and turned to Ray,

"'Ave we found it yet?" He barked impatiently. When the DS shook his head, the guv ground his teeth and turned back to Vince, to find him lying on his stomach. Rolling his eyes, Gene walked over to him, about to give him a good kick when he realised the DI hadn't blacked out, but was fully concious and appeared to be thinking hard, staring under a machine,

"Can you see it?" He shouted up to Annie, who stood on tip-toe to look over the machine, leaning over slightly,

"Yeah! Right there!" Annie shouted back, pointing to a dark patch on the floor behind the machine. Standing back up, Vince shimmied round the side of the machine saying casually,

"Eurgh, it was horrible down there, well wet..." He paused, looked around, adding two and two together, "The murderer wanted to clean up after himself," Vince whispered slowly, "So he mopped it all up, thinking we couldn't trace any of his footsteps. But he missed a bit..." He trailed off, pointing at the dark red patch on the floor. Bending closer to it and examining harder, he found he could just see a shoe print in it,

"How do we get this?" He mused to himself, jumping in fright as Annie came next to him with a peice of cloth and a conical,

"Just put the cloth over it and roll the conical over that" Annie explained, as Vince looked confused. Gene had a weird, half-appreciative half-disgusted look as the young female police officer did it. When they peeled the cloth back and there was a fully legible shoe print, Vince grinned victoriously at the guv,

"Don't you smirk at me you smart-arse. Right, Cartwright, get down to the station, tell Phyllis we need to collect shoe sizes" They had gathered all the workers of the factory into the station and were proccessing all of their details,

"Yes sir" Annie answered, and with a smile at Vince she was out.

"I still think it was Ted Bannister" Gene grumbled as they walked out.

He had kept this up all through the enquiry, every interview. Tina, the one who found Saunders, was apparently carrying Bannister's son's, Derek, baby. She had raged about how mad everyone would be about the factory being shut, and how Saunders was a prick and no-one liked him. One thing that made Gene sit up was that she declared,

"Ted was right to lay one on him" Both officers had glanced at each other with raised eyebrows. However, Vince could tell Bannister hadn't done it after the interview with him. A thought that Gene didn't share. Saunders had apparently gone running, and Ted was well... obese. The man was about 57, whereas Saunders was no older than 25. Ted had admitted to punching the victim, but he had been in the pub all night, when Saunders was supposedly murdered around half ten. None of it made sense, but Gene wouldn't admit it.

"Can I drive?" Vince asked, enthusiastically, like a small child would ask their parent, innocently, but completely seriously. The guv turned to him and glared,

"Are you crazy? Do you know how much this costs? And you said you can't even drive!" Vince shuffled up in his seat,

"Well, half. Howard's teaching me!" He trilled proudly, for once the mention of his boyfriend, no- the mention of his _fiance_, didn't make him feel depressed and vulnerable, just a bit sad, but mostly proud. He paled as he realised he'd mentioned him in front of Gene, but then laughed at himself. The guv wouldn't know he loved him, all he said was someone was teaching him to drive.

Gene had just ignored everything his DI had said, so it didn't really matter, and soon they were back at the station, Vince nursing a stinging hand after he tried to turn the radio station over, which had resulted in Gene slappng his hand. Hard.

"That hurt" Vince whined, hoping that if he sounded as child-like as possible Gene might take pity on him and be nice. Yeah right.

"Grow up you girl and get out of the car" Gene shouted, making Vince leap out, terrified, as when he walked past Gene the DCI raised his hand, about to scratch his head, but to Vince it looked very much like he was about to hit him.

--

"I just got this Guv!" Chris exlaimed, hurrying down the Guv's office where he and Vince were, of course, arguing. They both stopped, Vince turning his head and cocking it slightly, looking like a curious tabby cat, while Gene looked at Chris in the eye and tried to stare him out.

"What it it Chris?" Gene asked, sounding extremely bored.

"I got someone who saw some bloke running away from the factory on the night Saunders was murdered, and they got together with Steve, does those drawing for the christmas parties? Anyway, the came up with this," With that he produced the peice of paper he had been holding and held it out for the other two to see,

"That reminds me of someone, but I honestly can't think of who..." Vince said, thoughtfully. Gene clapped him (Extremely hard) on the back and said,

"You need your eyes checking Vincey boy! Do you want me to tell you who it is?" Vince bit his lip in thought. Why did his brain fail him _now_? Finally he sighed and said, dully,

"Go on then"

"That right there looks an awful lot like Ted Bannister"

--

Vince hadn't managed to convince the guv not to smash the door down, so he could only watch as the older man slammed his way into the house of Ted Bannister. Hearing a lot of commotion, and a smash told him that Gene had ripped his shoe off the ground, and hearing a triumphant yell, he guessed there was some sort of stain on the bottom.

He turned away from the car and leant against it, looking into the sky, thinking,

_"Vince, you have got to be one of the most impractical people I have ever had the fortune to meet"_

_Howard said this grinning at Vince, who was trying and failing to catch maltesers in his mouth, whilst tottering about in high heels, while also trying to carry an umbrella in the pouring rain. He stopped for a moment and gave him a look of contenment as Howard wordlessly took the brolly from him and put his arm around the smaller man's shoulder. Vince stopped trying to catch the sweets and leant in, sighing as the rain falling off the side of the umbrella passed them and he didn't get wet at all. _

_"Howard?" Vince asked sweetly, looking up and smiling softly, eyes gleaming, "Do you think we'll ever be this happy again? Like, _proper _happy?"_

_Howard furrowed his eyebrows at the absurd question, but thought. Vince felt his boyfriend's hand gently stroke his side as he walked, contemplating,_

_"Well....if we're always going to be together, like you say we are..."_

_"And you do!" Vince jumped in, slightly stung,_

_"And I do," Howard agreed, smiling, "then yes Vince, we'll be this happy again. Proper happy"_

Vince shook his head, so lost in his memories that he didn't realise Gene was stood behind him, and prodded him painfully in the side, making the younger man jump, and scowl at his DCI.

--

"So Ted, you killed him, then decided to wash away the evidence? However," Gene puffed out importantly, "You missed a spot" Ted gave him a dirty look and said,

"I didn't kill him. I swear to god, I'm not a killer" Vince leant forward,

"I believe you Ted, but it's all adding up against you here. You've gotta give me something so the guv doesn't skip around for a month, making me make his tea and tie his shoelaces"

"Ooh, now _there's _an idea" Gene said, grinning maliciously. During this, Ted had lowered his head, thinking extremely carefully. Did he want the factory to close? Obviously not, but would he rather face a lifetime in jail? Away from his family? That thought penetrated him like ice. He couldn't do that. His family meant more to him than anything else.

"I found him" Ted whispered, making both officers look up, gleams in both their eyes,

"What?" Gene asked, while Vince grinned,

"I went back to the factory and he was lying there. He got caught on the machine. So I tidied and made it look like he'd been murdered" Vince raised an eyebrow, but weirdly it was Gene who leant forward, understanding,

"You wanted to save the factory" Ted nodded,

"It has to be saved. If word got out one of our machines went faulty they might..."

"Turn it into a block of flats?" Vince suggested. Ted nodded again and Vince smiled tearfully, thinking of Howard. Always thinking of Howard. He was going to get back. He knew one of these cases would get him back. Just solve the right one and he'd get back.

**Ok, first off, sorry for the really weird, jumping from clue to clue, for example, I wrote something about a car with stolen weapons, intending to write something about it later on, but not lol, so ignore stuff that doesn't make sense ;). I know it doesn't end how it should, those who watch Life on Mars, but I was really tired (So, sorry for spelling mistakes) and I couldn't really remember much of this ep. tbh, so please don't complain about the storyline :) Please review, it makes my life worth living lol.**


	5. Chapter 5

**Again, sorry for the year long update. I've just been kinda busy with science coursework etc etc ;)  
K, this chapter isn't an episode. It was starting out to be, but I took ages talking about something off topic lol, so it's not anymore ;)  
Disclaimer: Both shows are owned by a) Some rich ponce in a suit, and b) comic geniuses **

"Eurgh, god I feel like I've drank a turban of tequila" Vince muttered blearily as he slid out of the bed, rubbing at his eyes in an attempt to chase away sleep. As he dragged himself to the bathroom, hoping to have a nice relaxing bath, and wash his hair, he stopped as he noticed that what should usually be on the telly wasn't. Wasn't there a small girl clutching a clown doll on the screen, before the programmes came on? Vince rolled his eyes at this. What sort of station doesn't have things on all night?

"Hello Vince" Vince whirled around, heart leaping up and down as he realised it wasn't Howard's voice, but when he leant down, the voice wasn't coming from the telly,

"How do you feel?" That definitely came from behind him, he was sure. Turning around, he squealed in fright and almost fell over as the little girl from the T.V was staring at him, clown doll as well.

"Would you like to go home?" Vince's eyes bulged at this. Was it possible to go home, just by asking her?

"Er, yeah, yeah I want to… want to go home" The girl grinned at him,

"Well then, simply tap your heels together and say 'There's no place like home'" She giggled happily, causing Vince to almost burst into tears of frustration. He turned his back, staring at the blank telly screen. Ok, so she was probably a hallucination brought about by the fact that his hair hadn't been washed yet, but the strain of his hopes shattering was nearly too much,

"Listen you…" Vince wheeled back round and snapped… but she was gone, back in the telly, sat staring into his dingy little flat as he paced up and down angrily, wanting to throw something through the stupid machine, but it was his one way of contacting… well, half-contacting Howard. He turned to get his clothes ready, after his bath, sure that would relax him, but he jumped at every small noise, and when he turned back round, the girl was no longer in the telly. Stifling a squeal, he threw his clothes on and shoved his shoes on whilst running out of the flat, hopping every alternate step, terrified of what might be behind. As he was half way down the street, out of breath, he swore. He'd forgotten to brush his hair. This day couldn't get any worse.

--

"Y'alright Boss? Looks like you've had a few too many" Vince didn't bother responding to Chris as he stormed into the station, grinding his teeth in anger. Not only was he probably losing his mind, he was missing Howard so much it hurt and his hair was so bad he was surprised people hadn't screamed and ran away as he was walking up the road.

He was just about to walk through a door when Gene burst through it as well, tackling some big brute of a man to the ground. The force of both men falling through the door pushed Vince to the ground. He struck his head of the tiled floor and zoned out for a second. When he came back to reality he felt someone taking his hand and pulling him back up. Still dazed, he shook his head, which only made the dizziness worse.

It wasn't until the person who pulled him up had gotten him sat down that his eyes became less blurry, and he saw Gene stood before him, looking down with concern in his eyes. However, as soon as he saw Vince was back with him, he put on a scowl and snapped,

"You took your bloody time you girl!" Vince stuck his tongue out, taking out his emergency mirror to check his face, and was relieved to find just one small bruise, considering the speed he hit the floor with. His face was rather pale, but he put this down to it being his look.

"Who was that?" Vince asked, pointing with a shaky hand towards the door he had just been knocked down from. Gene raised an eyebrow,

"Who was what? There's no one there" Vince shook his head, glad that he wasn't _as_ dizzy as before,

"No, before, when you kinda fell through them, fighting with someone" The guv nodded and said,

"That was Ernie Barker, idiot 'forgot' to mention something to us in his interview" Vince just nodded, pretending he was listening. He just wanted people to keep talking, to convince himself he wasn't mad. He'd do it himself, but he didn't really think that talking or singing to himself would back up his claim of sanity.

"Vince! Are you in?" Vince jumped, lost in his own thoughts. He looked up at Gene, who appeared to be ready to pull someone's head off. Crap, what was the question? Was he in what? Should he say yes?

"Yes" Vince answered, cursing as realised he had said that when he was thinking to say it. If he didn't take more care when it came to saying things out loud and keeping stuff in his head, he'd probably be put into a coma (Again).

However, the guv swelled happily as he answered, so the DI grinned back weakly and nervously, hoping he hadn't agreed to a wrestling match or something.

"Excellent. That'll be 10 bob" Vince raised an eyebrow. He'd agreed to pay for something?

"What for?" He asked, trying to be as nonchalant as possible, hoping he sounded more outraged at the price than confused at the product,

"Well, it's now his sixth year working here and he's going to be 31, so it'd be nice if you shelled out for it" Oh. Someone's birthday present,

"Who's... erm, how do you spell his name again?" Gene looked at him in disgust,

"Are you so stupid you can't even spell?" He spat, ignoring the hurt look on the younger man's face, his blue eyes shining with unshed tears, "Jesus, R-A-Y" He said slowly, using the phonetic letters as if explaining to a two year old.

"But he hates me!" Vince protested, "Why should I buy him a present? I don't even know him that well!" Gene prodded him in the chest with his index finger and snarled,

"I don't care if you like him or not, you can chip in for it!" Vince grumbled and reached into his pocket, hoping that the sudden dizziness he was experiencing would soon vanish. However, as soon as he stuck the money in Gene's hand, he almost fell over, and his face was pale,

"That's better," Gene grumbled at the money in his hand. Looking up, he saw how pasty and ill Vince looked and said begrudgingly, "Go home Noir, there's no point you staying here with con-bloody-cussion, you'd be even more useless than you are usually" Vince didn't really register any of this small rant, all he properly hear was 'home'. He nodded and slouched off,

"Oh and sorry Noir," the guv mumbled, "For hitting you with that door and all" Vince's eyes widened. Had Gene just _apologized_ to him? Lingering for too long in the doorway, he was pushed out and told to 'get your arse back to your flat before I kick you there'.

Vince stumbled out of the station. His head felt a bit clearer, but he dreaded going back to the flat. What if the girl was still there? _Maybe_, he mused, _maybe if I don't turn the telly on, she won't come. But then, _He thought, heart sinking, _Howard won't be able to talk to me._

He was stuck in his thoughts for a while, before deciding to go to the pub that the guv had brought him to on his first day in 1973. Opening the door and hearing a small tinkle of the bell, he saw it was mostly deserted, just the barman, Nelson, stood there, wiping glasses. He looked up at the sound of the bell and grinned,

"Ah, DI Noir, good to see you! What'll it be?" Vince opened his mouth, about to ask for his customary flirtini, but remembered Nelson had no idea what he was on about, so he said,

"Erm... whisky. Make it a big one, huge... massive" He needed to just get absolutely pissed, then when he went back to his flat, he _could _put it down to hallucinations, brought on by too much alcohol. He shuddered as the bitter drink slid down his throat, but continued to drink, ordering another after it. Nelson surveyed him with the kind of eye only a bartender has, where they can tell how long it will be before their customer gets too out of order.

"I think you've had enough mate" He said gently to the man, who was slumped over the bar moodily, appearing to be in deep contemplation. He looked up and opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment Gene busted in, followed by half the station,

"Usual Nelson!" He chirped happily to the barman, who nodded and moved away. However, his eyes narrowed as he saw Vince sat at the bar, "I told you to go home Noir" He growled as Vince still slumped over, haze of voices washing over him, the room spinning and going blurry. The guv went to sit down next to him and looked up in surprise as Vince mumbled,

"You know, I don't think I've ever been to Hyde" Gene snorted as Vince said this, and then promptly either passed out or fell asleep right there at the bar. The guv grumbled angrily,

"Nelson, keep my drink cool" and dragged his DI out of the pub, being followed by a sea of eyes, which promptly turned down again as Gene glowered at them.

--

Getting Vince into his apartment had been easy, it was keeping him _in_that was the hard part. After a few seconds of slapping on the face, Vince awoke to find he had 1) A massive hangover and 2) Somehow appeared in his flat. The curtains were drawn and the telly was on low. In front of the telly was sat his DCI, snoring loudly. Vince rolled his eyes and went to the bathroom.

Looking in the mirror, he flinched as he saw how pasty he was, and there was a huge lump on his face that was definitely not there before. He jumped as he heard a voice, but relaxed as he recognized it as Gene's,

"Oh you're awake then" He muttered, in a gruff voice. Vince grinned to himself,

"Did you stay to make sure I was ok?" He asked. This caused the officer to turn purple and growled at Vince,

"No, the match was on, I needed somewhere to watch it. And since I was here anyway..." Vince nodded and there was a moment of awkward silence before the girl with the clown was back once more, leering over Gene's shoulder and smiling sadistically,

"Hi again Vince, we didn't get to talk much this morning. I heard you're engaged," She smiled even more widely, showing all her teeth, "How do you know he won't leave you at the altar? Or change his mind when you've _just _booked the place? Isn't it easier to stay here, where you'll never have to worry about that?" Vince had started shaking all the while, which the guv had thankfully picked up on this and tried to sit him down on his bed,

"No! Vince shouted, protesting at being so close to the girl, "Not there! Not there, can we go somewhere else?" He pleaded, ignoring the stabbing pains in his head and the weird looks Gene was giving him.

"Why? You want to sleep at mine? Is your place not grand enough for you? Little snob" Gene said, but when Vince clutched at his arm so hard it left finger marks, the guv just sighed and walked out, giving Vince a look which clearly said, 'Keep up and say nothing or I'll kill you'.

The DI scuttled after him gratefully, looking back to see the girl still stood where she had been before, smiling and holding her clown doll.

"Don't worry Vince, I can wait for you to come back from your sleep over. And I'll let you speak to Howard when you come back. You'll like that won't you?" Vince slammed the door and didn't bother locking it, a swirl of thoughts following him as he ran to keep up with his boss' long stride.

**Tadaa ;) Sorry if it's a bit too short. Would you rather have chapters like this, that I just make up, or would you rather I changed some of the episodes, but it had the same basic storyline of the episode? Please review and tell me :) Oh yeah, and for those of you who don't know, the girl with the clown was called 'Test card F girl' in LoM. Look it up on Wikipedia and there's a whole page about her lol.**


	6. Chapter 6

**_Ooooh, tonight, the stars are so br-igh-ight... _Sorry, HelloGoodbye :)  
Anyways, AGAIN, sorry for the long wait. This may turn into an actual episode, but then again it might not. It will. But will it really? I don't actually know ;)  
_Bit added after the chapter was written: It didn't turn into an episode._**

"Get up" Vince woke up to being kicked in the side and having a small bottle of whisky flung at him. He slowly stretched like a cat and got up, ruffling his hair while yawning widely, giving his surroundings another glance while the guv was in the bathroom.

It was definitely swankier than his flat. It was an actual house, with a proper kitchen, two bathrooms and bedrooms, and it was all spotless. When they first came, Vince looked at the guv quizzically over the general cleanliness of the place, to which he had responded,

"Look, if I had my way, it'd stink of fags and booze, and there'd be more posters, but the wife likes to live in a home rather than an office she says," Then, after a pause, added thoughtfully, "More porn too".

Vince was glad, however, that the place was clean. It was easier to feel relaxed here, rather than at his flat, which smelt of damp and was all musty, reminding him of the storeroom back at the closed down Nabootique. He sighed loudly, clambering up from his spot on the sofa, blankets falling off him, which made Gene scowl when he came back in from the bathroom. 'The misus' had smiled as soon as she saw the DI and had announced last night that he was 'an absolute sweetheart' and that he needed 'fattening up' as though he was a small child. Needless to say, Gene hadn't been thrilled about the attention Vince was getting, but couldn't stop his wife piling blankets (_The best ones_ Gene thought angrily) onto the smaller man, claiming he would get cold because he was so thin.

'The misus' came downstairs and smiled at Vince, turning the kettle on and sitting down in the kitchen,

"Good morning dear, how was your sleep?" Vince nodded and grinned cheekily, the smile that won everyone over, man or woman (But had yet to win the guv over) and answered,

"Brilliant, cheers, I might have to stay here more often" He giggled as Gene walked in, and grumbled what sounded like, _'You dare invite yourself and I'll stick a hot kettle up your ass'. _Gene's wife seemed to be the sort of wife that always had breakfast and a newspaper on the table for her husband every morning, and was rewarded with a peck on the cheek and a begrudging 'thanks'.

"Mrs Hunt?..." She interrupted, waving her arms,

"Please, call me Hannah dear" Vince nodded and continued,

"Yeah, so, Hannah, erm, don't suppose I could have a quick shower could I?" He asked, knowing it was safer asking her than Gene. It was obvious who was in charge of the household really,

"Of course Vince, here, let me get you a fresh towel, feel free to use Gene's shampoo" Vince nodded and bit his lip, knowing he was about to answer that he would rather use hers. Well he wouldn't want to smell like the guv would he? As soon as Hannah walked out the room, Gene was inches away from Vince's face,

"If you're planning to get extra food or something by trying to flirt with my wife..." Vince raised his eyebrows,

"What? No! I'm not even very hungry, anyway, she's more like a motherly figure..." He tailed off, praying Gene didn't take that the wrong way. He couldn't help it, he'd never really had a mum, and this woman he barely knew was acting like Howard's mother did. Oh, Mrs Moon was nice to him as well, even when they were children, she'd insist on taking Vince on any family outings, but he had to practically fight Howard for her affections. With Hannah, she looked at him like a son, and at Gene like a husband, so there wasn't anything wrong really.

"I'm warning you Noir, you tell anyone at work that you stayed over, had a shower then proceeded to sweet talk my wife into practically adopting you, I swear to God..." Hannah bustled back into the room,

"There you go dear, you wash away the cobwebs," She grinned, "Breakfast will be ready soon, would you like some?"

"Erm, can I just have some toast please?" She tutted and shook her head, walking back into the kitchen without answering him. With the guv glaring daggers into him, he went into the bathroom, closing the door and easing the lock into it's place.

He loved having early morning showers at home. Both he and Howard would go into the bathroom, quick (Well, _long_) kiss then one would either get into the bath or have a shower while the other perched on the side of the bath and talked to him. Then Howard would always dry his hair for him while he put his make-up on. Sniffing, he glanced around, hoping Hannah was they type of woman to leave make-up all over the place. He quickly spied a box that contained a few sticks of eye liner and some eye shadow. He sighed. He would have to be inventive.

Putting the thought away for the moment, he stepped into the shower and turned it on, for a few minutes forgetting all his worries as the warm water washed over him and eased all the tension in his muscles. He had already picked the shampoo and shower gel he would use, quickly going past Gene's boring shampoo, and picked up Hannah's 'Tropical fruits' shampoo and 'Summer dreams' shower gel. He smiled happily as he massaged his scalp indulgently, taking care with various layers of it.

Finally turning the shower off, he got out and wrapped a towel round himself, scowling at the clothes in a crumpled heap on the floor. Why had he not thought to pack any clean ones? When he was fully dry, with the towel wrapped around his head like a turban, he pulled his clothes on and rootled round the cupboards until he found a box of _really _colourful makeup, possibly for whenever they went out. Hoping Hannah wouldn't mind, he got to work, lining his eyes with black and then had quite glittery eye shadow on. He winked at himself in the mirror and got to work on his hair.

Ten minutes later, he heard a gentle knock on the door that definitely wasn't Gene,

"Vince dear?" Hannah spoke through the door, "Are you ok? Breakfast's ready!" For some reason, that made him more homesick than ever. It should be Howard knocking on the door saying that, not a very maternal woman married to the boss his mind had made up.

He creaked the door open slowly, trying to hide his eyes, with tears pouring out of them. Unfortunately, she noticed and immediately started clucking and pulled him into her bedroom, sitting him on the bed while she got some tissues,

"Oh dear, tell me what's wrong! And be careful not to smudge your..." She paused as she noticed what Vince was wearing,

"Don't be mad!" He begged, wincing as he knew how much of a child he sounded, "I just borrowed some of yours, 'cause I don't have any right now" She smiled and said,

"Well it's nice to see a man in touch with his feminine side" Vince nodded, feeling tears dripping off his nose. He bunched up a tissue and dabbed at his eyes carefully. Looking up, eyes no longer wet but rather red, he looked into Hannah's eyes,

"I just really miss... someone, right now" She nodded understandingly and said,

"Did you have to leave them in Hyde?" She smiled at Vince's baffled expression, "Gene's told me all about you dear, it seems you've made quite an impression. You're not at all like the other lads in that station. Although Chris is quite nice. Anyway, tell me about her" She smiled again, and invited Vince to talk,

"Erm...it's, it's not a her" He said quickly, and rushed on before she said something, "Please don't tell the guv! I know how homophobic they all are, and I don't need that, not right now" Hannah looked into his strained, pale face and pushed his hair back slightly,

"Don't fret Vince, I promise I won't tell him anything. Now instead, how about you tell me all about this man of yours" Vince grinned and started telling her all about Howard. It was nice to tell someone about him, and made a note in his head to talk to Annie as well. He was just getting onto how they were engaged when Gene's voice drafted up the stairs,

"How long d'you want to be you two?" He shouted angrily. Vince rolled his eyes and stood up, smiling at Hannah,

"Thanks so much Hannah, you've been really nice. I just, y'know, miss him so much. It hurts" He whimpered, and she patted his shoulder,

"And it should Vince, if you're really in love it hurts to be away from them," She cast a glance down the stairs and ruffled his hair slightly, and said nothing as he quickly put it back in place, "Come on, you eat this breakfast I've made, and no arguments!" She said sternly as they both went downstairs.

Arriving in the kitchen, Vince sat down and tried not to make eye contact with the guv who was giving him very suspicious looks. Hannah set down a huge plate of various cooked goods and made sure he ate at least two sausages before nudging Gene and pointing at the clock. Just as Vince was about to eat a mouthful of egg, Gene knocked the fork away from his mouth (Much to Hannah's disapproval) and said,

"C'mon Noir, Chris and ray have probably demolished the station" Vince nodded meekly and stood up, smiling widely at Hannah,

"Thank you so much Hannah, for well... everything" She smiled back,

"It was nothing dear, feel free to come back anytime" This must have annoyed Gene somewhat, as he coughed quite loudly and said,

"We don't want to be late now, do we DI Noir?" He glared at Vince, who nodded and was about to go down to the car but turned back and gave Hannah an extremely warm hug, sniffing onto her shoulder to stop the tears coming once again. She hugged him back hard, and said,

"Gene, could I have a quick word with you?" He nodded and threw the car keys at Vince,

"Do anything and I'll kill you" He shouted down the pavement had bounded down. He looked back at his wife, who said, rather forcefully,

"_Be nice._ He's under so much strain right now, and is missing his..." She paused, hoping she didn't say the wrong thing, "Well, he's missing someone, and you said he was nearly hysterical before you got him here! He must be quite delicate, and doesn't need you shouting at him, belittling him and throwing your fists around. Please, be nice. I know you care about him, or you wouldn't have brought him back here after giving him concussion!"

Gene blinked after this small rant, but knew he couldn't say anything against his wife. And somehow she always knew if he hadn't done something she asked him to. He nodded and said gruffly,

"See you tonight" He pecked her on the cheek and did something he hadn't done for about two years, and patted her cheek softly before turning and walking down to the car. Vince was sat there, bouncing happily along with a song on the radio, making Gene openly shudder before opening the car door and getting in. He could see his wife watching from the door, so he simply said,

"Belt" and started the engine, while Vince hastily clipped his seat belt in. He'd already been in one car crash, he sure as hell didn't need to be in another one.

**Ok, to be honest, I thought it would be longer, and maybe even turn into an episode, but as always, it didn't happen. And I imagined 'the misus' as a kind of Mrs Weasly figure. You've all read Harry Potter right? The way she talks to Harry, then her tone changes completely when she switches to someone else lol. Anyways, that's enough out of me. Please review? I still need to know if you all like these kind of chapters rather than episodes. Though the last chapter will be an episode. With a slight twist...**


	7. Chapter 7

**Hey, how're you, you cheeky bitches? This is probs gonna come to an end soon. Maybe. Hmph.  
Disclaimer: Don't own Boosh or any of Katy Perry's lyrics**

'_I kissed a girl, and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chapstick…' _Vince was singing under his breath in the guv's car, on the way to the station. He was absentmindedly thinking of Hannah, how nice she was, which brought him thinking about his mother.

He could barely remember her. He had lived happily enough with her and his dad, until he was about 6, but then his dad left. And he'd never been able to find him. Not a trace. Howard had even let him have a quick glance through the police records, and even then there had been nothing whatsoever about an Oliver Noir. His mum hadn't even contacted them. He hadn't been filed as 'missing'.

He shivered as Gene wound the window down. Remembering something, he shot bolt upright in his seat and shouted,

"Stop!!" The guv swerved in the road and swore, looking over at Vince,

"There had better be a bloody good reason for this Noir!" He yelled, forgetting about the wife's order to be nice to the little scroat.

"I left my jacket at mine!" He whimpered, "Can we go back and get it?" Gene flushed a very deep purple that surely couldn't have been good for him. Straining against every grain in his torso he didn't punch the DI (but it was an extremely close thing). He threw the car into reverse and when he had finally manoeuvred around, he flew down the streets at what felt like 200mph.

Vince sat shaking in his seat, clutching the dash board with one hand, and his seat belt in the other, praying that he would make it to his jacket in one piece.

--

He managed to open the door and stumbled out, mumbling he'd only be a minute to Gene, who was his usual colour, but was now drinking what was probably alcohol from a hip flask and drumming impatient fingers on the steering wheel. Vince pounded up the stairs, praying to a god he wasn't sure he believed in that the freaky girl from the telly had finally gone, and maybe...just maybe, Howard was waiting to talk to him.

He got closer to his door, nerves fraying already, and reached out a shaking hand to open the door. It creaked but swung open easily and Vince crept in, peering round the door in case she was waiting for him behind it. He let out a shaky breath when the flat seemed to be deserted, and proceeded to go over to the chair near the telly, to snatch up his jacket. A voice made his hand freeze in mid air,

"Hi sweetheart. I know I haven't...haven't visited in a while, but I've been...thinking," Howard paused to swallow, but then carried on, "This isn't right for you is it?" Vince was sure he could feel someone tenderly stroking the back of his hand, "I know I sound like I'm talking...well, complete bollocks, but it's not right for you to be stuck there, with nothing to do. What if you can hear me and can't say anything? It's just... Damnit!!"

Vince jumped as Howard screamed at nothing,

"You're so sparkly and energetic and amazing and... I can't, don't want to see you lie so still, with machines helping you breathe. They've.... they've asked if I want to... switch the machine off"

Vince gasped and started shaking the telly,

"No, Howard I'm here, I'm gonna come back, just, please babe, don't!!" He stopped trying to form a sentence, tears falling down his face as he stared at the telly, wishing it to speak words of comfort to him,

"I said... we'd wait, to see how you went, but they said... they said people don't usually come out of comas of this severity," Vince pulled a puzzled face, and as if by magic Howard said, "People don't usually come out of comas this _bad_. Even if you do come out of it, they said there's a chance that you'll be...well, brain dead. I know you don't want that, and you've no idea how much it hurts to hear stuff like this"

"Well it's hurting quite alot!" Vince said angrily, before remembering the _severity_ of the situation,

"They're gonna give you another 24 hours," Howard choked out, "But they said they weren't holding much hope. You know I love you with all my heart, and I've tried everything to make them stop, but they said there's no...no point" Vince could clearly hear Howard sobbing, "But there is, I told them it's you, and that's the strongest argument I have. But they said...they said that wasn't good enough"

THere was a slience and Vince thought that his fiancee had stopped talking, and jumped as he started again,

"I don't.... I don't know what to do Vince. What do I do? I just...oh god, I know you can hear me, and I want you to know, if there's still no...improvement after 24 hours I'll..." The telly went grainy and quiet. Vince gaped at it for a second before throwing himself at it and hitting it with all his might,

"No, Howard Tommy Jerry Moon you listen to me!! You are not going to...I, I love you, and you love me, that's enough right?? I just..." He started sobbing, throwing anything at the telly, shoes, hairspray, brushes, anything he in a 3 foot radius he could get his hands on.

Eventually he gave up the fight and curled up on a ball, exactly like the first time when Howard had spoken. He didn't even jump as the door was slammed open,

"NOIR!! You better..." The guv tailed off as he surveyed the scene. Clothes and shoes were strewn everywhere, magazines flung around the room, the telly's screen was almost kicked in, and the DI - _his _DI, was curled up in a small ball, crying.

"Vince?" The DCI's voice became more gentle as he slowly made his way over to where the young man lay. He stretched out a hesitant hand and placed it on Vince's shoulder, "Are you alright?"

Vince looked up at him, blue eyes turned grey, all colour and life sucked out of them. He still lay curled up, hands clutching his thin stomach, hair all over the place,

"He said...he...." Vince couldn't finish his sentence, and was reduced to sobbing once more. Gene looked down at him, admittedly worried about the young man,

"Vince were you robbed? Was someone waiting here when you came in?" Vince shook his head, cursing himself as soon as he did. That would have been and easier answer to the 'what's wrong?' question.

"Then what happened?" Vince managed to sit himself up, and wiped his nose on his hand, not caring about the disgustingness of it right now.

"Erm...I mean, yeah, I was mugged, they... shoved a gun against my head and erm...hit me. Alot" His stuttered confession didn't sound very convincing, but the guv seemed to understand and carefully helped him up,

"Do you want to...stay here? Today, I mean" Vince glanced at the telly. Would he be able to cope if Howard talked again?

"Erm... no, I don't want to be, here...I mean, I'll come... come into work" He walked out, stuffing his jacket on with shaking fingers. How would he get back in 24 hours? It was impossible, he had no idea what to do, could he just run and run? Maybe finding a small door back to the real world? He let out an hysterical laugh that made the guv nervous.

"Vincey boy, are sure you want to go in?" Vince nodded emphatically and nearly ran to the car, waiting for the guv to come and unlock it.

--

Gene kept giving Vince quick, worried glances every so often in the station. This went unnoticed by the young man, but every single other police officer noticed, and were murmuring to each other in corners. Who knew the guv would be worried about this girly, thin inspector who annoyed him so much?

"Annie!" Vince yelled as he saw the young WPC. She turned and smiled gently at him. She had heard about the whole being hit by a door incident yesterday, and had been quite worried when he hadn't been in the rest of the day. She was, however, quite glad that he had come in with the guv. He was protected and it showed that Gene didn't hate him completely.

"How are you Vince?" She asked, eager to know why he had come in with the guv,

"I'm fine," He started distractedly, "But listen," he pulled her to a corner and she looked up at him, confused, "Howard just talked to me, he said that if in 24 hours I don't make any improvement, they're gonna turn the life support off! You've got to help me!"

He tried to ignore the weird looks she was giving him, but couldn't help and snarl slightly,

"What? It's true and....and I don't know what to do" He tailed off dejectedly. Annie opened her mouth and was about to start talking, when Gene came over to him and said,

"Away and curl yer hair love" to her, making her roll her eyes and murmur,

"Yes sir" and walk off. Vince looked up at Gene and said,

"What?" the guv motioned for him to walk with him and said,

"You remember we have that new gang in town, the Morton brothers?" Vince shrugged. He barely remembered anything from round here. The name sounded sorta familiar though,

"Well we do, and we've pulled in a bloke that could be connected with them. Found 'im in a hotel room that was listed as a place to contact them" Vince nodded, looking round at the telly sets they had dotted around on desks. Could he try and talk to Howard through these? Maybe if he tuned it properly?

"Pay attention!" Gene snapped, making him jump, "Listen, we need to interview him, so just keep it together for a while, got it?" Vince nodded and asked,

"What's his name?"

"Oliver Noir"

--

Vince collapsed into the chair opposite the suspects. It was his dad. Same name, same hair, little crooked smile he always gave his mum, blue eyes, same crap dress sense. He looked at him, mouth hung open. Memories came flooding back to him. His mum and dad holding his hands, swinging him up and down in a park, his dad tickling him, his dad...

"You related then? Both Noirs?"

"Oh give over" Oliver grinned good-naturedly over at Vince, who smiled weakly, trying to learn every small detail about his dad's face. Every line and contour there, Vince analysed. He had so many questions... Questions that would never be answered.

"So, Mr Noir, what were you doing in the hotel room?" Vince glanced up to hear his dad answer,

"I sell cleaning products, my regional supervisor is a Mr... a Mr Bomont, you can, check with him. Anyway, I was hoping to meet a client there and discuss some business"

"Why in a hotel room?" Gene asked, suspiciously. Mr Noir looked scared for a second, so Vince leapt in,

"It's...neutral ground. For meeting clients...I mean" He stuttered as both men turned to look at him. Gene raised an eyebrow,

"Well in that case you're free to go Mr Noir! Should we let him go Vince?" Vince stared at Oliver, wondering if he'd say anything. His eyes went bright and blue and said, somewhat excitedly,

"Oh, I've got a young lad called Vince!"

"I've got a pain in the arse called Vince!" Vince stuck his tongue out, but shyly stuck it back in as Gene swelled up and glared at him.

"I should...erm..." He practically ran out of the room, but didn't stop there, and continued running until he got back to his flat.

--

He didn't bother checking the flat this time, but ran straight in, and went directly towards the telly, which thankfully still worked as Vince switched it on. Knowing what he was doing made no sense and there was no point to it, he crept up extremely closely to it and said,

"Guess what Howard? I've found my dad! Y'know how I always said I went to live with Bryan because he was really good friends with my mum? It wasn't...exactly like that," He hung his head as he admitted lying, "My dad left, roundabout..._now._"

He stopped talking as what he said hit him like a ton of bricks. What if that was it? That was how to get back? Maybe if he got his dad to stay, he would go back! It was a longshot, but he had to try.

"Howard I've got it! I just have to keep him with us. With me and mum! And he looks no different y'know, he's exactly how I remember him! It's genius, I can almost see him" He grinned widely, for what seemed like the first time in ages as he remembered his dad, all the things he'd done, everything that had happened before he left.

"And Howard... hey Howard, I've just remembered something else!" He was laughing as he recalled his fondest memory, all of them locked away until now. He was now almost doubled up, laughing.

"Vince?!" His head shot up as Howard's voice once again emanated from the telly, "Oh god, Vince?! Can you hear me??"

"What?" Vince yelped, before shaking the object once again and screaming, "I'm here Howard, right here! I can hear you!" He could hear the crashing of trolleys, the shouting as doctors ordered various nurses about, all in his head, not from his telly this time.

_"Sir, what's wrong?"_

_"It's Vince, he...just then, you must have seen, he smiled! I'm almost certain he was on the verge of laughing, did you?..."_

_"Yes, I think, look - just then, he did!"_

_"Is this good?" Howard sounded scared, but ecstatic at the same time,_

_"I believe so, he might come out of this in one piece after all. Let's get him for another CT scan"_

_"Did you hear that Vince? You might come back! I'm sorry for almost pulling the plug I just..."_

The voices died away, and Vince sat there, stunned. He was going to go back. He knew it! Maybe it really is his dad, the way for him to get back? If he smiled in real life when laughing, thinking about his dad, what would happen if he got his dad to stay?

**Please review? I'm not sure about any of the Howince stuff. Not that there's a lot, I just... Bah, I'm tired and hungry :( Please review? Again lol. Hope you liked it!**


	8. Chapter 8

**Hey ;) So, I was getting a bit bored with this to tell you the truth , but suddenly was inspired to write again lol. I asked my good biatch UltraaNeeon about the last bit in the story, and she was like, 'Yeah'  
Lol, so that made no sense, let's get onto the story :) Oh yeah, I know it looks long but it's worth it I swear :P**

"Vince?" To the younger man's surprise, Gene didn't actually barge through, yelling. He tapped, almost hesitantly on the door. Vince got up from where he sat, thinking, on his bed. He opened the door and went back to his brooding, head in hands as he stared at the floor.

Gene walked over and sat next to him, the bed dipping slightly and the stench of stale smoke and whisky were thick in the air. For some reason, this comforted Vince, but he was thinking to much to realise,

"Why did you walk off? There's no point sittin' in this dump all day," Vince nodded slightly, as if in agreement with the DCI, but the flat was still in silence as both men just sat there, "So we finally got something out of Oliver Noir" Gene was pleased to see Vince react to this,

"What?! What did he say? He wouldn't do anything, he's got a family to look after, a little kid, with good dress sense..." Thankfully, Gene didn't hear this last bit and replied,

"'E said that he was havin' a card game," This bit was said with a disbelieving voice, "With those two blokes we nabbed for workin' with the Morton's. He gave us an address of where they wanted to meet him"

Vince nodded and heaved himself up off the sofa, much to the surprise of the guv, who half expected the young man to sit there all day,

"Well c'mon then, the sooner we find evidence that he's innocent, the sooner I can go home" He ignored Gene's look and walked towards his door, biting his lip as he heard a voice from the telly, deliberately slowing down to hear it,

"Hey you, the doctor brought this really posh, expensive neurologist - that's someone who looks at your brain scans and tells us what's what. Anyway, he said it might help you wake up faster if you heard something familiar, besides my voice, so I brought your Bowie CD, I'll just turn it on... there you go sweetheart..."

Flowing from the telly came 'Ashes to Ashes', which made Vince's eyes well up with tears, but hurriedly blinked them away, in case the guv saw. However, it doesn't stop him singing along,

"_Do you remember a guy that's been... in such an early song...I've heard a rumour from ground control, oh no, don't say it's true_" Although he was singing quietly, it didn't stop Gene giving him a sideways glance,

"I've never heard that one" He muttered as Vince finally shut the door, but regretted it instantly, no longer being able to hear the song,

"It's by Bowie, 'Ashes to Ashes', it was out _ages_ ago" He got a blank stare and nearly kicked himself. Of course it wasn't out years ago, it would be out in... when? 1980. Seven years. Well at least he had stuff to bet on. With these thoughts in mind he trilled,

"I bet you that in 1980, Bowie'll release a song called 'Ashes to Ashes'" Getting just a growl in response, he shut up and headed towards the car.

--

"Right, we've got back-up and Plod waiting, so let's get on with it" Gene shouted at his team, who all nodded in response, including Vince, who actually looked rather excited at the prospect of raiding this bar. In truth, he'd never really done anything like this, Howard had never let him, preferring to take specialists, leaving Vince in charge while he was gone. Vince had always grinned at this, loving how scared Howard was for him, but now, he felt almost sick as he pictured Howard, scared to death about the small man in the hospital bed, never getting any better.

"Let's go!" The DCI yelled, and they swarmed in, ignoring the startled looks they got from various regulars there, Gene kicked a door at the back of the room down, and charged in, stopping when he was only half-way in and glaring around at the room. There were about 12 men in there, smoking and watching a screen that was showing what looked to be porn.

"Right, I'm gonna have you all dragged down the station and you're going to answer some of my questions, got it?" He yelled, possibly spitting in several people's faces. Vince managed to edge into the room, and, after a quick glance at the screen, asked,

"What're all those on that table?" Gene looked round slowly, making sure to keep the men in the room in his sight. On the table opposite, there were about two crates of various films and magazines, which Gene gave one glance at and grinned back at him,

"Nice work Vincey boy. Ray, get a couple of Plod to help and take this evidence down to the station" He shouted to Ray, who managed to worm his way past Vince and nodded, waving over a few officers who quickly picked some magazines up and exited the bar, depositing the 'evidence' in the cars.

"Sad" Vince muttered, rolling his eyes and not taking another look at the screen, which is what all of the other officers were doing, barely making sure that all the clients there were being taken to the station.

"C'mere" He said to one of said clients, making sure the rest were following before making them wait in different cars, before going back and pulling Gene to their car.

"Do you mind, I was checking the crime scene!" He barked at Vince, who just nodded, disbelievingly and asked,

"So why didn't you find this?", holding up a phone number which had been stuck to a board in the room. Gene looked like he was going to burst, but just breathed out slowly and said,

"I was leaving it for you... boosting your confidence and all..."

"Right" Vince answered, in a heavy sarcastic tone, gazing at the number. It looked really familiar, and stirred a very hazy memory up in his mind, but was struggling to recall it.

--

They all sat in the station, everyone but Vince trying to edge further forward, clustered around a screen set up in the middle of the room. The boxes they had taken from the scene were stacked on desks, while Vince sat on another desk near the back, swinging his legs as he dialled the number he'd found into the phone.

"Any luck Noir?" Gene shouted across the room,

"It's not been answered yet. It'll probably be a sex chat line or something" He shook his head as the guv looked puzzled and stuck a finger up in the 'one minute' gesture as the phone was finally answered,

_"Hey, this is Vince Noir, d'you want to speak to my mummy or daddy?" _A cute little voice errupted from the other end of the phone, making Vince almost fall off the desk. He _knew_ that number looked familiar. Why would their home phone number be given to a place that sold and showed porn?

_"Hello?"_The kid sounded really nervous by now, so Vince stuck the receiver down quickly and let out a shaky breath, looking up to see Gene frowning,

"Well? Any chat?" Vince shook his head quickly,

"Erm.. no, no it was a... wrong number, er, unobtainable" Gene growled and stomped the front of the room, where the other officers were waiting impatiently to check the 'evidence'. Switching it on, they were all immediately greeted with a woman doing some _very_ pleasing things to a man who looked to be grimly enjoying himself. After a few minutes, the guv switched it off and barked,

"I want to know who's sellling and making this filth! Hard-core porn..." He was about to say something, but was interrupted by Vince laughing and saying,

"Hard-core. Yeah. I've seen worse on channel 4" The others all turned to look at him curiously, while Gene flared up and said,

"_Anyway._ I want whoever's doing this found by tea time, got it?!" They all nodded quickly and got up, before all rushing over to the magazines, muttering things about needing to analyse them.

VInce rolled his eyes before going to stand by the guv, his head in a whirl. What would his dad have that would be of interest to these people? If it was the Morton's behind it all, why would they want him?

"You and me are going into town" Gene announced to the DI, who swivelled round to look at him,

"Genius! I think in the paper it said there was a sale somewhere... possibly 'Ye olde Topshop'" He started muttering to himself, panicking as he tried to think of a decent clothes shop in the 70's.

"No, what me any you are doing, is we are going to find Jimmy Lips," Vince raised an eyebrow at him, making the guv sigh and elaborate, "He's a great squealer, knows all sorts of things does Jimmy. Prozzy would be better, but they don't always know stuff about gangs. More rapists and muggers"

Vince nodded and asked,

"Are we going then?" The guv nodded and shouted,

"Chris, go through this film again, try and pick out faces!" The young officer scuttled over, nodding and exclaiming,

"Yes guv!" Before settling down in front of it with a grin on his face.

--

After fifteen minutes of merciless beating, Jimmy Lips (Although Vince had a hunch this wasn't his real name) finally spoke,

"The Mortons are planning something, something big, only the 'ead honcho knows what" Gene threw him against the wal again,

"Is that true Jimmy? And who would that be?" The man looked extremely nervous and shook his head, either not knowing or unwilling to say. After another few minutes, Vince layed a hand on the guv's arm,

"Guv it won't do any good, he doesn't know anything. Let's go back, see if any of them found something" His bright blue, pleading eyes won the guv over, and he threw Jimmy out of his grasp and onto the floor as Gene walked back to the car, dragging the younger man behind him, who kept flicking his eyes backwards to check if Jimmy was still moving and/or breathing.

--

"Guv! Boss, we've got something!" Chris yelled as they came back through the doors. Looking at eachother, both Gene and Vince ran over to where Chris was sat, waiting for him to explain,

"I was watchin', and the camera kinda swung round and it showed the people who were directing, and I managed to pause it and, well..." He tailed off and let them to see who was there themselves. Gazing up at the screen in horror, Vince saw an incredibly familiar face near the front of the directing crew.

--

"So Mr Noir, care to tell me why you were at a porno shoot the Morton's set up?" Gene growled, his temper already extremely close to snapping as he looked at the nervous man on the other side of the table,

"Ok... I was... I didn't go because I wanted to, I... they threatened me, and my family, Little Vince and Ivy, my wife. They said if I came to one of those, _filth _shoots, then they'd leave us alone" Gene was looking at him all the time, never taking his glance away,

"And why would someone as high profile as the Morton brothers want to hurt you and your family?" The man shrugged, shaking and pale. He was wringing his hands uneasily and looked to be quite sweaty.

"Erm, guv, maybe we should give him a minute" Vince suggested, getting a warm feeling in his chest as his dad looked over and smiled in thanks. However, the guv said,

"Have you had anyone try and contact you yet?"

"What?" Oliver asked, looking thoroughly confused,

"They're going to want to know if you said anything to us, so when they hear you've been released, they'll probably arange for you to meet them somewhere. So you should go home. I'll stay outside and wait, then we'll go when they call" Vince said all this quite quickly, not wanting Gene to interrupt before he had finished. Thankfully, when he did, the guv said nothing, but actually nodded in agreement, but growled, as they were leaving,

"No funny business Noir". Both Noirs turned around, grinning slightly as Gene scowled and said,

"The one who doesn't annoy me every hour of every day" They both nodded, Oliver for some reason looking slightly guarded as he and Vince left.

--

Vince sat in the unmarked car Gene had provided. He felt rather sorry that his dad had to drive them back, what with his shaky hands and everything, but didn't trust Vince enough when he announced that he was learning how to drive.

Vince was almost falling asleep when he heard a door slam quietly and he looked up, seeing Oliver half running/half walking over to him. Getting in the driver's seat, he looked down at his lap and said, almost shyly,

"They called. Said I had to meet them at a snooker club in half an hour" Vince nodded and picked up the radio in the car and tried to grin, but only managed a small grimace,

"We'd better call in some reinforcements then, huh?"

--

"You'd better be right about this Noir" Gene said, glaring at Oliver, who fidgeted about on the spot nervously and pulling at the cuffs on his jacket. Vince was just as nervous. Is this when his dad went? No, he corrected himself insantly, the only thing his mum had said about this was that it was at a family wedding. Vince crunkled his lip and glanced about, hoping not to see any banners saying 'Congratulations' or anything like that. Checking his watch, the guv said gruffly,

"You'd better be going in then. And don't worry, I've got someone on the inside, you'll be fine" He winked at Vince after Oliver had walked in.

"Do you really have anyone in there?" Vince asked,

"Yeah, I got Jimmy Lips to go in there and see what he could find out, then if..." His words were cut short by the sound of gunfire in the air. Not wasting any time, Vince ran in, his heartbeat racing. What if his dad hadn't ledt? What if he'd been shot, and his mum just said that to him because he was so young and didn't understand what 'death' was?

Gazing around with his heart in his mouth, he saw a body, bleeding and barely breathing, lying on a snooker table, but instantly knew it wasn't his dad. The hair was completely different. He shot into the only other open door, which led to a back room. There was another body in here, slumped at his desk, blood dripping onto the paperwprk he never got to finish,

"Da... Oliver?" Vince called out, hoping no one heard that small, slip of the tongue. He heard a gasp and saw a man cowering behind a desk, looking up in shock, big baby blues hitting Vince. Standing up quickly, he grabbed hold of Vince's arms and said, almost yelled,

"You've got to get me out of here Vince! They were waiting for me, the Morton's, they shot everyone, and I... I heard and hid..." He was wringing his hands again. _Wow_, Vince thought, _I never knew how much my eyes affected people. Now I know why Howard does what I ask him so many times_. He looked up as they both heard Gene shout from the other room,

"Noir, here!" Vince dashed out, dragging his eyes away from his dad's and sped into the main hall, seeing Gene bent over the body on the snooker table, trying to decipher what he was choking out,

"The...K...Key, key..." He shuddered as he heart finally gave out, and lay still

"Even in death you're useless, aren't you Jimmy?" The guv growled, looking down with some regret as Jimmy Lips lay dead before them, "What the bloody hell does key mean?" He spat, before looking up at Vince,

"Were's Oliver?" He asked, making Vince start and say,

"He's fine, he heard the gun shots and hid, he's in that back room,". Pointing a finger in the direction of the room and continued as they walked there together, "He said the Morton's were already here and waiting..." He trailed off as they went in and saw that the only person in the room was the dead man hanging off his chair, souless eyes gazing up at them.

"Find him or don't come back at all Noir!" Vince glowered at him, but it didn't take too much persuading for him to go. What if his dad had gone... The family wedding! Vince was sure it was today, or maybe tomorrow, and ran off, before skidding to a halt near Jimmy and saying, extremely slowly,

"Key... not _a _key_. The _key. A quay! You got the wrong type! A dock!"

Gene looked at him and said,

"He told us before he'd heard about some porno shoots being done at docks. Right," Gene blew himself up to his full height and barked out orders, "Noir, you go find Oliver, us lot'll go to the quay"

"I think I know where he is!" Vince yelled at his retreating back, "A family wedding he...I, I heard him talking to his wife on the phone" He quickly lied, "It's at... erm..." He struggled, trying to remember the name of the place. Suddenly, alightbulb went off in his head, "Greystoke Community Centre!"

The giv nodded and said,

"You go there, we'll go to the quay" Vince's eye's dimmed slightly,

"You're not... you're not coming?" Gene shook his head and said,

"It only takes on man to find another, how many men, possibly armed will be at the quay? Yo can go by yourself, and like it" Vince stamped his foot angrily and childishly, before remembering the seriousness if the situation and rushed off.

--

He rested his elbow on the window ledge of the centre and sighed, sticking his head on his palms, gazing through the window. His heart gave a start several times as his mother swished into view, dancing with a small child. Whether it was him, he didn't know, but for a few minutes he just sat and stared, wishing he could go in and hug her. He hadn't seen her in so many years. Her black hair, which was tied back in a pony tail flew behind her, and she laughed merrily, green eyes sparkling as she kissed the child on the top of the head and went to dance with someone else.

Vince jumped up as the happy scene was invaded by the sight of his dad suddenly coming up behind his mum and holding her hand, twirling her hair, stroking her face and mumbling small words into her ears, which made her blush prettily as they continuied to slowly dance to David Bowie's 'Life on Mars'.

Suddenly, the scene changed once again, as his dad suddenly ripped away from his mum, walking toward the front doors. Vince could hear his mum's bewildered tone, asking where he was going, and heard his dad reply in a tense voice that he'd only be two minutes, before almost running out.

Vince edged round the side of the building to see the man running into the woods near the centre. Looking sharply around and realising that Gene was as good as his words and that he had no back-up, Vince hastened to follow him, stumbling every so often as there was a particularly clumpy bit of grass.

Then, he just tripped, went right over, sprawled over the floor, after his foot hit something that definitley wasn't grass. Looking back, his stomach made an odd jolt as he saw a gun, that had obviously been dropped and, hearing footsteps running back to claim it, Vince guessed it wasn't on purpose.

Looking up from his position on the floor, Vince saw Oliver, rushing through the woodland. He stopped at the sight of Vince lying there and held out a shaking hand,

"Give it to me" He begged in a small voice, "I need it. What if... what if the Morton's find me? I need to protect myself" Vince managed to get up from the ground, hand curling round the handle of the gun.

"_I _can give you protection! Don't leave!" A definite tone of fear struck in his voice, making Oliver almost reel at the pain the officer was suffering,

"I.. I have to. You're going to arrest me, and I can't, I need to be... my family are better off without me and..."

"Don't move, you're surrounded by armed bastards!!" The booming voice of Gene Hunt shot through the trees, making Vince leap in fright and spin around, looking for him. Just as he did this, Oliver launched himself forward and knocked the gun out of the young man's hands, into his own.

He grinned, a psychotic glint in his eye as he pointed the gun at Vince.

"I _need_ to keep the family safe. They're better off with this" He cocked his head slightly as Vince stared at him, deep into his identical blue eyes.

Suddenly, time slowed down. Vince heard his DCI swear and could hear footsteps running towards him as he saw his dad wink madly and pull the trigger, aiming the gun straight at Vince's chest. He was sure he heard the bullet as it ripped through him, pain exploding inside him as all he could feel was sadness. He hadn't managed to get his dad to stay. He'd never get back.

He heard his dad running off, followed by officers, but it was fruitless. They'd never catch him. He'd fallen to the ground, landing softly. Too softly, he thought, but then realised Gene had ran forward and caught him, laying him down gently.

The pain was tremendous. His eyes went fuzzy then blurry, fuzzy then blurry. Like they were in sync with a heart rate monitor. Could he hear a heart monitor? Or was he just passing out?

_"Jesus Vince, come on, you can do it, just breathe, come on. God Vincey boy, come on, hold on, ambulance'll be coming soon kid, you can hold on, just stay awake ok? No, open your eyes, I..." He had the sensation of Gene holding him, cradling him, tears running down his face as he slipped slowly from conciousness, back and forth. He could hear other officers muttering in the background, a woman crying. Annie? He never got to say bye. Or tell her more about Howard. And Hannah. She was nice. He should've talked to her more. __"That's it Vince, you're doing it, nice deep breath, ignore the blood it's... it looks worse than it is, I swear. Come on Vince, open your eyes!"_

_"Vince? Come on sweetheart breathe, come on. God Vince darling, hold on, the doctors coming, you'll wake up, come on, open your eyes!" He had the sensation of Howard holding him, cradling him, tears running down his face as he slipped slowly from conciousness, back and forth. He could hear other people, wheeling trolleys around and muttering. "That's it VInce, you're doing it, nice deep breath, come on, you can do it, I know you can! Come on Vince, open your eyes!"_

He heaved a tremendous breath and his eyes opened.

**Whey, where's he gonna wake up? You're gonna have to wait till next time :P Please review, or it'll take even longer for me to update....**


	9. Chapter 9

**Breathing deeply here, praying to god you'll like it :S Ok guys, I know loads of you have sorta, mixed feelings for how this is gonna play out. Hopefully, in this and future chapters, you'll like what I've decided to do ;)  
Disclaimer: Wow, I haven't done one of these for ages. Don't own!.....I missed this :)**

He heaved a tremendous breath and his eyes opened.

Slowly, they blinked open. Blurrily, he gazed upwards, looking into bright light, which could be either sunlight or an electrical light. All he could really see was this light, which was getting slightly dimmer as his eyes got used to it. He tried to open his eyes more widely, sure that at the moment they were just small slits, afraid of seeing where he was.

"Vince? Can… can you hear me?" His ears had gone fuzzy, hearing someone talk, but was unsure of who it was. Gene or Howard? He opened his mouth to answer, feeling like it hadn't been opened in years. Whispering croakily, his throat scratching all the time,

"Yeah" Damn. Was that _his _voice? He was sure he'd only been out a couple of minute's tops. What happened? At hearing him mumble gingerly, another person in the gasped, standing up and coming closer to him, carefully putting their hand on his. He squinted, trying to see the person's face, but the light was still in his eyes. He tried to tell them to move, but they suddenly knew what he wanted, moving that little bit closer to him, blocking out the light.

The face became clear. Brown eyes locked in with blue as both men just stared.

"You've no idea how long I've wanted to see your eyes again" Howard whispered softly, the light from behind shining round him, curling slightly as though he was part of the light itself. Vince's blue eyes filled with tears. Every emotion he'd ever felt seemed to have circled themselves around Howard, personified into one, glorious human being. He let out a choked sob and started to cry. Silently, with just the drops of happiness/sadness making their way down his face.

"Howard" He mumbled, voice still croaky as he went to try and sit up, putting all his yearning into getting straight. He tried to throw his arms around Howard's neck, to give him a hug that he never wanted to end, but his body wouldn't co-operate. More tears fell from his eyes, furious, utterly unsatisfied.

"Don't try and strain yourself Mr Noir" Vince's head jerked round at a new voice, which seemed to have appeared from nowhere. He could see a bit clearer now, and saw Howard, smiling and with tears in his eyes, his lips trembling. A man who Vince assumed was his doctor stepped forward, and looked like he had just come from inside the wall. At seeing his patient's confusion, the doctor smiled and said,

"We wanted you to wake up seeing a familiar face, rather than just a boring old doctor," He grinned again, before moving on, "I'm Doctor Hunt, and we...Vince? Are you ok?" At hearing his doctor's name, Vince's eyes had gone wide and his face had gone quite pale,

"No, I'm...I'm fine" Howard stroked the back of his hand and Vince smiled, which made Howard started crying,

"I'm.. I'm sorry, I just, it's been ages since I saw him smile, I just..." Vince squeezed his hand with as much energy as he could muster and looked up at the doctor again. He grinned at the pair of them and continued,

"So, before I tell you everything that's happened, or at least let Howard fill you in, I need to do a few routine checks" With that said, he shone a beam of light in Vince's eyes, and nodding happily, as presumably the pupil dilated or something.

"We'll need to send you for another CT scan, to check there's no brain damage, but I'd say you were fine. Let me just ask, what's your name?" Vince looked puzzled but answered,

"Vince. Vince Noir" Doctor Hunt nodded and asked,

"And who's this gentleman here?" Motioning towards Howard. Vince smiled beautifully up at him and whispered,

"Howard Moon, he's... the most special thing in my life" Howard bit the inside of his to cheek, trying to make sure he wasn't dreaming. Was Vince, _his _Vince, really awake? He couldn't stop stroking the younger man's hand, staring at him as he answered the doctor's questions, every so often throwing Howard a slightly nervous but nonetheless loving smile, fidgeting impatiently on his weak limbs,

"Are we done yet?" Vince asked, already bored of the situation. Doctor Hunt smiled and said,

"I just want a quick talk with you about what happened. Do you remember?" Vince saw Howard shuffle slightly straighter in his seat and glanced down at his hands,

"He... he shot me" Vince whispered, before realising what he just said and grabbed onto the doctor's arm, "I.. I mean, yeah, no, I was...the car it, I went right over it. I was listening to 'Life on Mars'" He ended, remembering that part about the whole accident. He shuffled nervously as both Howard and Doctor Hunt glanced at him, but neither said anything, until the doctor flicked through his chart and said,

"You were in a coma. Quite a deep one, but surprisingly came out of it very unscathed and in a small amount of time. You were only in there for about 2 months" Vince paled and looked over at Howard, grasping his hand tightly,

"I..I left you alone, for _2 months_?" He asked hoarsely, feeling weak and tired. How could he do that to his fiancee? With a sudden surge of happiness, he realised Howard hadn't asked him _properly _yet. Howard looked extremely shocked at the way Vince's face had gone a brighter shade of white. and quickly said,

"Don't be upset Vince, please, it wasn't you fault, and it doesn't matter now, because it's all over, we can just go on as though nothing happened" Vince nodded, not quite paying attention and said quietly to the doctor,

"Can we, y'know, havea few minutes alone?". He looked up hopefully, eyes shining, something anyone would fall for. Apart from Gene. Shockingly, Doctor Hunt shook his head,

"Sorry Vince, you need rest, and visiting time's over. I promise Howard can come tomorrow" Vince's eyes filled with tears and tried to clutch at Howard's hand, but his hand was too weak, Howard's easily slipping through his grasp,

"No, please, I _need_ him here, I've been away from him too long, I've missed him too much" The doctor gave him a curious glance and asked,

"Do you mean that you feel that you've been in a coma too long or...?" He left it open to suggestions, watching Vince curiously. The young man didn't know what to say. The doctor would look at him as if he was mad if he said that he went back in time. Eventually he settle for,

"I could hear you... sometimes. I missed you, I couldn't say anything to you" He directed this at Howard, and his bottom lip wobbled once more, gazing at Howard, wishing with all his might that he could just have an hour or two that was just them alone. Even if there wasn't much talking. Just looking at each other and maybe Howard, sat on the bed next to him, cradling him softly as he slowly fell asleep. He yawned slowly, picturing the scene so perfectly.

"Ok Vince, you really need rest, you need all the strength you can for physiotherapy tomorrow" Vince eyes flicked nervously towards his doctor,

"Why? Can't I walk?"

"You haven't used your muscles in two months, and weren't far away from going into the pre-natal position in your bed, the foetal position. We need to get you walking as soon as possible. It might be a bit harder than normal, as you got some injuries in the crash, so you might get a few... twinges. But enough of that for the time being. You need to rest." He nodded at Howard quite forcefully, who sighed and looked down at Vince, not wanting to leave him. Vince picked up on the huge hint for Howard to go and immediately tried to protest,

"No! Please don't make him leave! At least let him stay until I fall asleep!" He grabbed his doctor's coat again in desperation and this time Doctor Hunt sighed and gave in. He nodded at Howard and said,

"Fine, but tell me as soon as he nods off" With that he swished out of the room.

Finally they were alone. Vince twisted the corners of the hospital duvet and glanced up, almost shyly, at Howard,

"Hey" He murmured, blushing at how stupid he sounded. He'd just come out of a coma, and the best he could come up with was that? He twisted the duvet some more and whispered,

"I'm... _so so _sorry Howard. I... god, you don't know, I'll never... I can't believe I left you for 2 months..." He broke off, wheezing slightly due to the fact he hadn't been breathing on his own for very long, and he was now trying to take big gulps of air, sobbing slightly.

Howard was horrified that Vince genuinely blamed himself for everything. Ok, Howard had been terrified during the last 2 months, and sometimes missed Vince's voice so much he felt sick, but would _never _guilt trip Vince about any of this.

"Oh Vince," he sighed sadly, getting up and sitting on the hospital bed so he could hold Vince. Running his hands through the younger man's hair, he murmured, "I love you Vince, and the only ting I'm going to think about any of this is that how lucky we both are. How lucky_ I_am. I've got the most amazing, most... stunning fia..." He stopped, about to say fiancee. Vince may have said he could hear them, but even if he had, he definitely hadn't answered yet. And now wasn't a good time to propose.

Unfortunately, or fortunately as the case may be, Vince looked up and heard what he was about to say,

"Howard?" He croaked, "Were you...I mean, before, when I was.. y'know, you. I didn't dream it did I?" He asked, suddenly looking very woe begotten. Howard's face slipped a notch. Did this mean Vince wanted to? Should he ask? The other man's white face, which set out his startling blue eyes made his mind up for him. Quickly rummaging in his pocket, Howard produced the ring he had slipped on Vince's finger only a few days into the coma and got down on one knee.

Vince gasped, his eyes shining, hands clapped over his mouth as though he was going to be sick. It wasn't exactly a surprise, or the most romantic of moments, but right now, Vince couldn't imagine any other place he'd rather have it done. He shining eyes stared right into Howard's nervous ones, and he squeezed them shut for a second after Howard said solemnly,

"Vince, will you marry me?" Even though his throat still wasn't exactly the best, he managed to squeal girlishly and burst into ecstatic tears, glad when Howard came back up off the floor and slipped the ring on, which meant Vince could finally fling his arms around his husband-to-be.

**I was intending to make this longer, but I wanted to post this part, and loads of you said you wanted it to kind of... drag on, so the like, 10000 words i was gonna put in this can be sized down to nice lil' chunks called chapters ;) Please review, right now you have no idea where I'm going with this ;P **


	10. Chapter 10

**Thanks for reviews :P I like how you're all guessing if there's gonna be a twist or something ;) Lol, it might turn out to all have been a part of my dastardly plan to take over the world! Mwuhaha… Oooh, cheese Panini…  
I just wanna say, that some of this may be crap, mostly because I just watched the conclusion to Anne Frank, so y'know... floods. It was horrifying, I cried more at that than I did at Titanic :0**

Vince blinked his eyes open; annoyed that he had apparently nodded off, which meant that Howard had gone. He glanced around, seeing no one in the room. Shuffling down a few feet in his bed he sighed heavily, only half a minute out of sleep and already bored and lonely.

Thankfully, there was a window in the private room he was in. Unfortunately, it was to the side, so he had to twist around to look through it. Not that this was overly painful, but he was still getting used to moving again (Although in his mind he had been moving all the time) and he could just twist his head to look through. It was a cloudy, grey day and he felt like crying. Ok, he was ecstatic that he was back and engaged, but he felt so alone…

For no reason, he started to sob weakly into his hands, shaking as he tried to stop.

"Are you ok Vince?" Doctor Hunt entered the room, looking concerned as his patient continued to cry softly. Vince sniffed and wiped his eyes and nose with a tissue from the box on a side table. Nodding, he answered,

"I'm just…lonely, and it's really grey outside, and that's…that's not good" He finished lamely, not quite managing to articulate his sadness very well. The doctor appeared to scribble something on the chart that seemed to be permanantly glued to his hand. He was just about to say something when the door opened and Howard crept in, rather shyly.

"Howard!" Vince immediatley started grinning and forgetting the depression he had just been feeling. Howard grinned back and sped over to him, hugging him as hard as possible, but trying not to hurt the younger man,

"How are you?" He asked lovingly, pushing some of Vince's hair back from his face. Vince grinned cheerily and was about to answer, but the doctor stepped in,

"We're going to start him on physio in a short while, do you want to be here for it?" Already knowing the answer, he moved on, "Can I have a quick word outside?" He asked, making Howard glance back at Vince,

"Vince, I'm going to go outside for a minute, but Naboo and Bollo are here and want to say hi" Vince's face lit up, and he nodded, letting Howard pat his hand and go out with the doctor, sending the shaman and his familiar in, but warning them to be gentle.

"When I walked in this morning, to tell him you were here, he was crying. His reason was that he was lonely and that it's grey outside" He raised an eyebrow as he said this, "Normally I wouldn't be worried about this type of thing, some coma patients do experience a few periods of depression, but, and I know I've barely met him, but from what you've told me, he seems too happy. I know that sounds stupid, but..."

"That sounds fine," Howard said, "I think he was just lonely. And he does sometimes get quite miserable if the weather is. It's like he changes with it" THe doctor shrugged and said,

"Well, whatever, just tell me if anything else like this happens in the future, just to be on the safe side. Now, I'm going to get Doctor Cartwright, she'll be taking him for his physio" Howard nodded and went back into the private room. Vince was laughing as he talked to Naboo, whilst Bollo was stood over him, almost like a bouncer.

Howard walked over, and sat on the chair meant for visitors, stroking Vince's hand as he chatted excitedly to Naboo,

"...and we're going to get everyone in the family, and I'm gonna get the most genius suit, and the flowers'll be..."

"Vince, aren't we supposed to be planning this together?" Howard asked, more amused than annoyed. Vince rolled his eyes and said,

"C'mon Howard, I'm not having anything beige or jazz related at my wedding" Naboo chuckled, even smiling at Howard when he said, quite softly,

"I'm glad you're back Vince, you have no idea how ill Howard looked" As soon as he said that, Howard wished he hadn't. Vince's eyes dropped down to his lap and he was no longer grinning,

"M'sorry" He murmured. Howard gently turned Vince's head to face him, and whispered,

"Look at me" Vince slowly brought his eyes up and was almost crying as he thought of what his fiancee had been through. His thoughts were soon stopped however, as Howard suddenly brought their faces close together and kissed him, not extremely passionately, but enough to make Vince gasp for breath and cling on as though he never wanted to let go.

"Mr Noir?" They all looked up to see a woman with intelligent blue eyes and short, spiky blond hair smiling at them, "I'm Doctor Cartwright, you can call me June, I'm going to be your physiotherapist"

Vince nodded, ignoring the nausiating feeling building in his stomach at her name (_Both _names) and asked,

"What are you going to do?" He looked at her nervously as she grinned,

"It's my job to get you up and about again. The first thing we're going to do is get you out of your bed, into these shorts, and walking around. All in the space of an hour, hour and a half, max." He stared at her with wide eyes. His legs felt like jelly, how the heck was he going to manage that?

"So if your friends could leave while we do this?" She asked politely, looking pointedly at Naboo and Bollo. Both nodded in response and Naboo muttered to Howard on his way out,

"Tell me how it went after, I need to smoke" Howard rolled his eyes but nodded, and smiled wanly at Vince waving feebly before facing the physiotherapist and looking as though he was about to be executed.

--

However, it wasn't _as _bad as expected. She had ordered Howard to be gently guide the younger man out of the bed, while she gave Vince instructions of how to actually do it.

"Come on Vince, you can do this" Howard murmured, so that only his fiancee could hear it. Vince nodded, not looking up from the ground as he put all of his yearning into standing up from where he was leant on his bed. Finally, he was stood, breathing quite heavily and with a small amount of perspiration on his forehead.

He looked up at June and asked pathetically,

"That's enough right?" His face drooped as she said,

"Nope, we need you in these shorts, rather than a hospital gown, and a tee-shirt of your own to start you with various exercises" He looked at Howard, pouting, hoping he'd argue. But the older man shook his head, an amused smile on his face,

"Sorry sweetheart, but you need to do this" Vince harrumphed but nodded begrudgingly and allowed Howard to carefully help him into his shorts (Horrible things they were as well, a boring grey colour) and let Vince put his own top on. He started shaking at Vince's small frame, thin before the accident, positivelyskeletal now. However, that could wait until they got home, a place Howard hadn't been for 2 months. He shook his head and concentrated on Vince being told to lie on the floor, with an inflatable ball on his stomach and do 5 sit ups.

Vince struggled for 10 minutes, each sit up agony, sweat dripping of his face, falling down like it was coming from a water faucet. Finally, after doing them, he was instructed to lay still dor a sceond while June went out the room.

"She's a bloody devil that woman" Vince groaned, massaging his stomach, getting terrible cramps.

"You're being so brave" Howard said, hoping that words like this would help Vince. He leant down to kiss him, which Vince hastily tried to sit up to, making June laugh as she came back in,

"Well that's one way to get him up," She said, winking at them, "Ok Vince, lets try walking, it'll be a snap, just get up, like we practised and I'll put Howard at the other side of the room" She laughed. Vince gritted his teeth and slowly moved in the way she had taught him, carefully rolling over so he was on all fours, and gently easing himself up on his arms, which were quite strong and didn't need the same attention as his legs. He finally got to standing, without anyone's help.

Standing there, swaying slightly, he bit his lip. He was incredibly tired, and didn't think he'd make one step, let alone all the way over to Howard. He squeezed his eyes shut before opening them again and bringing one leg forward slowly, he managed to take a few steps, nearly half-way over, before shaking his head and said,

"Sorry, can we try tomorrow? Please, I just...I just _can't_. Not today, I'm too tired" His voice didn't sound whiny when he said this, more tired, regretful, apologising. Howard glanced at June, who gave Vince the benefit of the doubt and said,

"Ok, same time tomorrow kid" She had gotten this horrible habit of calling him 'kid', even though Vince was sure he was older than her. She waited until Howard had gotten him back over to the bed and in his hospital gown until she swept out, saying over her shoulder,

"I'll just let the doc know we've finished" Howard nodded, helping Vince back into bed. He looked so miserable that Howard got on the bed with him, and gave him a long cuddle, stroking his hair and occasionaly kissing him on the head. Neither of them were talking, but Vince liked it that. The silence helped him think.

How would he tell Howard all of what happened? Could he just tell him, and hope his fiancee wouldn't just laugh, or say it was just his mind trying to make stuff up from where he was? He wasn't stupid, he got the connection between his doctor's names, and even the ward he was in, which Howard told him was the 'Hyde ward'. Sighing, he decided to just come out with it,

"Howard..." He began, but didn't get much further than that, because Doctor Hunt came in and grinned,

"Had fun?" Ignoring Vince's sour expression he said, "We need to get that CT scan now, see what's what" Howard patted his hand as he got off the bed and told him he needed to go find Naboo, to tell him how it went. Vince nodded sadly and let them wheel him down to radiology.

**I don't know whether or not coma patients of only 2 months need physio, but I guess they must, seeing as they haven't used their legs in... well, 2 months. Review please?? x Hope you enjoyed the fluff, I can't write fluff lol ;P**


	11. Chapter 11

**Cheers for reviews guys ;) Hope ya like this...  
Wow I don't have much to say here for once :)**

Vince was wheeled back to his room after the CT scan. It had been rather boring for him, just lying there while there were loads of thumping's and crashes overhead. When he got back to his room, he saw that Howard was sat inside it, reading a book that he had obviously brought with him. Hearing the squeaking of the hospital bed wheels, he looked up and smiled lovingly at the raven haired man in the bed.

"How was it?" He asked, never having had one before. Vince shrugged and said,

"It was alright, bit boring," He paused, struggling with how to start his sentence, "Howard... y'know how I said I could hear you when I was in the coma?" Howard furrowed his brows. He understood what Vince meant, but at the same time, _didn't_.

"Yes..." he answered slowly, not awfully sure where the younger man was going with this,

"Well... what if I said I _did _hear, but not exactly from just lying in this bed?" Howard blanched,

"Er.. I'm not really sure what you mean Vince" Vince looked him straight in the eyes and said,

"I heard you from my telly. In the flat I stayed in. In 1973," He sheepishly grinned at Howard who looked extremely confused, "I went back in time, but I could sometimes hear things from now! I heard you proposing, and you played me 'Ashes to Ashes' and..." He tailed off at seeing Howard's face,

"You don't believe me do you?" Howard's eyes grew wide at the tone of his fiancee's voice,

"It's not that Vince, but don't you think it was just a dream..." He jumped as Vince interrupted him, yelling,

"No! It was _real. _I promise! I can tell you everything about it, the clothes, the cars, the places, the people... I was a DI! Well... I mean, I know I'm already one, but I was one then as well, but you weren't there, there was this DCI called Gene, and he was really... strange, he was really mean and grumpy, but he seemed nicer, he gave me concussion, and yelled, but I'm sure he was crying when I got shot..."

Vince continued to talk, not realising Howard was looking at him with a sad frown on his face. It wasn't that Vince sounded crazy exactly, you hear about this kind of stuff all the time, people having those out of body experience things, but they always agreed it had been just that, but here Vince was, proclaiming it was real, and that he _had _gone back in time. Maybe all of those scans had missed something? Maybe he had a tiny part of his brain that had gone wrong?

"...and it's because of that you didn't pull the plug!" Howard paled as his fiancee mentioned that. How could he have known? Ok, Howard believed him about the younger man being able to hear them, but it still unnerved him slightly,

"Wait, wait, wait," Howard said, slowing Vince down, "Why didn't we pull the plug?" Vince grinned at him, and said,

"'Cause I smiled. I was telling you about my dad, see I met him, and I started to laugh, and then you said that I smiled, and the doctor said I might be waking up, and then..." Howard let Vince talk on, not knowing what to do. Thankfully, Naboo came in just then, making Vince stop and smile,

"Alright Naboo? How're you?" the shaman nodded and said,

"Howard, the doctor said he wants a word with you" Howard smiled shakily and got up, Naboo taking his seat and continued talking to Vince. Would he tell Naboo what he'd told Howard? That would be sensible, as he assumed the shaman knew more about this than him.

"Doctor Hunt?" Howard asked as he approached. He felt extremely nervous. What if something had shown on the scan? The doctor looked up from where he had been flicking through some charts,

"Ah, Howard. Well, I'm pleased to say that nothing showed up on the CT, after maybe, two more physio sessions he should be free to go. I would like you to keep an eye on him though, and I wouldn't advise him to go back to work for at least another two weeks after discharge" Howard nodded, forgetting the whole 'Travelling back in time' issue. They could deal with that back at home, if Vince remembered it. And he might not, not with his mind full of physio and god knows how many tablets he had been prescribed.

--

"Come on Vince, just a few more steps!" Howard yelled encouragement from where he was, just a few feet away from his fiancee. It was Vince's last physio session, and June had said she'd let them discharge Vince if he could walk down three corridors of the hospital. Howard had walked slowly in front, smiling, and June had stood behind him, carefully watching and noting down anything she thought might be a problem. They'd walked down two corridors, and were almost at the end of the third.

Vince was limping slightly and breathing heavily, but (Shooting venomous looks at June) was still persevering, and finally walked the last few feet and fell into Howard's arms, sweating slightly but looking up at Howard, who's heart almost burst with love at the sight of the smaller man gazing up, his eyes shining.

"Does this mean I can go?" He asked June, deliberately putting some wonderful naivety in his voice. This almost made her melt. She nodded and walked over to him, ruffling his hair (Even though she knew he didn't like it. Only Howard was allowed to do that),

"You've done good kid, I'm going to miss you," She then smiled at Howard, "And you Howard, you were great motivation, you should help with some of my other patients" She joked.

"I don't think I'd be allowed" He replied, grinning at Vince's glare. She nodded absentmindedly while signing a form.

"You're all set," She said, "Give that to the doc, and you're home free" Vince grinned happily, but needed to lean heavily on Howard as they went back to his room.

--

While Vince was getting dressed, Howard gave Doctor Hunt some forms that various nurses gave him. He signed them as well and asked for Howard's signature. When all of that was out of the way, he asked,

"Watch out for any signs of that depression we talked about" Howard nodded, and the doctor said, "Oh, and he'll probably get a few headaches for a while, but they should calm down eventually. Some may be quite severe, but it's nothing some fresh air, a dark room, and Adult strength Nurofen can't sort out" Howard nodded again and looked over to Vince, who was sat on the bed, now dressed, gazing round the room.

He had been in this room for 2 months. Just layed there, not moving, being helped to breathe by a machine. While Howard sat there, worried sick. And he had gotten the better end of the bargain really. He could go wherever (As long as it existed in 1973) he wanted, and had people to talk to. He could only imagine how Howard had felt sat next to him, hearing nothing but the ventilator and the steady beat of the heart machine.

"Vince, are you ready?" Howard asked, bringing the younger man out of his reverie. He shook his head and looked up,

"Yeah, can't wait to get out of here" He grinned as Howard picked up the small bag that had some of his belongings in and helped the small man to his feet. Howard shook hands with the doctor, which prompted Vince to do the same,

"Bye Vince, hope I never see you again" He laughed, and winked. Vince smiled and was about to go, but blurted out,

"What's your first name?" Doctor Hunt looked surprised but answered,

"Gene. I know, crap name, but I'm named after my Grandfather. He was a police officer - like you" Vince paled but nodded, and grabbed Howard's arm as they walked out, clutching at it like a life-line. He needed to explain to Howard that it was all real. He was the one person Vince was sure would believe him, but he had just asked whether he had been dreaming. He'd prove it, He thought to himself, when they got home, he'd explain it all so clearly Howard wouldn't doubt him at all.

**Please review :) I need it after the crap day I've been having, and I'll get to Vince's plan to make Howard believe him faster... What's gonna happen? Only I know :P And I've got the script kept in the fridge next to the yoghurt ;)  
xx**


	12. Chapter 12

**Thanks for reviews, hope you like this one :)  
****Disclaimer: Don't own, blah blah blah…**

Vince was fairly subdued on the ride home. He kept looking at his lap and occasionally out of the window and whenever they went over speed bumps he paled slightly, which Howard was worried about, but still didn't say anything.

Even when they got back to their block of flats (_Factory _was all Vince could think) he didn't say anything, and proceeded to stand there in a sullen silence while Howard locked the car and led the way to the flat. Finally, when they were both sat there, in an awkward silence, at opposite ends of the sofa, Howard twisting his hands on his lap, thinking of something to say. This should be happy, Vince is back and well, and here they were, sat there, sulking almost.

"Look, Vince..." Howard sighed as he started, but at that moment, Vince jerked upwards and mumbled,

"I'm gonna be sick" With that he darted off to the bathroom, and for a horrible second Howard thought he'd done that because he didn't want to talk, but was bizarrely cheered by the sounds of vomiting. He got up as well and went into the bathroom, kneeling down next to Vince, who was bent over the toilet, retching and making small moaning sounds. Howard rubbed his back caringly and gently pulling his hair away from his face.

When he was done, his hand groped around for a while before he found the handle and flushed the toilet, but didn't get up from the floor,

"Vince?" Howard asked, tentatively, "Are you ok?" Vince looked up slowly, his face glazed with tears. He nodded morosely, but Howard put his arms around the smaller man, enveloping him in a hug while they were both still sat on the floor,

"What's wrong sweetheart?" Howard whispered, his voice cracking. He didn't know what to do, Vince might be suffering from depression, but he might be crying because he'd been sick, which had happened before, "Tell me" he implored, at the point of crying himself.

"M'sorry Howard" Vince mumbled, "'M _so so _sorry, I just.." He was cut off by Howard shaking him by the shoulders and growling,

"Don't you _dare _say that Vince! You have _nothing _to apologise for! I just want to know what's wrong" His tone softened at the last statement and he was glad to see Vince's eyes free from tears,

"Thanks Howard" He whispered, "I just, thought you might blame me for, how upset you were, thought it'd be better if maybe I wasn't here" Howard shook his head sadly,

"Vince," He started seriously, "You know that's not true, and you know it would be a whole lot worse if you weren't here. We can get through this Vince, you've just got to talk to me" Vince nodded and wiped his eyes,

"I'm just being... being silly" he said, sniffing. He stayed in Howard's arms a bit longer, before snuggling in deeper and muttering,

"Headache". Howard nodded and pulled him up, wary of his aching muscles and said,

"You brush your teeth, I'll get you some paracetamol"

--

A while later they were both curled up on the sofa. Vince had brushed his teeth, washed his face and hair and got into some old pyjamas. He layed his head on Howard's lap and sighed softly,

"I wanted to do this for ages" Howard looked down at his shining but tranquil face and just nodded in agreement. He didn't want to say anything that might make Vince remember the whole 'time travel' lark. Unfortunately, that seemed to be running through Vince's head as well, and he slowly began to sit up, careful not to aggravate his headache further. Looking into Howard's eyes he said softly,

"I know you don't believe me about 1973, but it was real. I know it sounds stupid and's hard to believe, but how come I have so much detail about it all? I bet I could name all the senior officers, and if we went into the collators office..."

"The what?" Howard interrupted, confused,

"Oh, the er... the archives. Anyway, I bet there, we'd find all of them"

"Vince, you need to rest, your tired from all the physio and all the emotional strain," Vince looked like he was about to interrupt, but Howard held up his hand," Tell you what, if tomorrow, you're absolutely set on this, we'll go down to the station, you should see all the cards and flowers in your office! And you can look, ok?" He stroked Vince's hair back and smiled at the light in his fiancee's eyes.

Vince got up carefully and Howard followed him to the bed. He was confused as to why Vince breathed a sigh of relief seeing the bedclothes had been changed, but didn't question it. Vince meanwhile, was remembering the whole 'dead body in the factory' incident, and had felt sick again at the thought of a body on their bed, but the bedclothes looked like they'd been changed just yesterday, so he happily slid under the sheets and smiled sleepily at Howard,

"Night Vince, see you in the morning"

"Night H'wrd, s'good to be home" Howard nodded in agreement and left the room.

He sat on the sofa and debated over calling Naboo round. He'd said the shaman should come round, to check on Vince, but they had both thought that might be a bit too much strain, as his first night back home. Then he started thinking about what he'd said to Vince. He tried to convince himself that it was because he wanted to put Vince's mind at ease that they'd check the archives (_Where had collators office come from?_), but was it really to put Howard's mind at rest? In his world, people couldn't go back in time, it just wasn't physically possible. Besides, Vince obviously hadn't left the hospital in those two months, so it had to be in his head. It was quite easy (Especially in Vince's case, with his over active imagination) to make things up, and hadn't he said back at the hospital that his DCI was called Hunt or something? He could just have heard names and places and slotted it all in. He could have added hundreds of bits, the detail had nothing to do with whether Howard believed him or not.

The older man sighed, and didn't get to bed that night until two in the morning, and even then he didn't sleep, just tossed and turned, staring atthe back of Vince's head. Was he in 1973 now? Or was he having a dreamless sleep, brought on by the medication he'd been made to take? Whatever was happening, he didn't make a sound, which made it even harder to sleep.

**I want to leave it here for now, cause I want you all to ponder on those little thoughts that're plaguing Howard lol. Was it all in his head or not? Review? xxx**


	13. Chapter 13

**Hiya, thanks for reviews :) Hope y'all like this chapter, which I quite liked writing, and I'm not sure why. But I'll enjoy next chapter more... :P  
Disclaimer: I don't own the boosh or LoM k?**

Howard stretched as soon as he woke up, something he had started doing for the past two months, and found that his hands touched… nothing. He opened his eyes, afraid it all been a horrible dream and that Vince hadn't really woken up, but his usual side of the bed had definitely been slept in, and Howard could just about hear the sounds that the shower made after it had been used.

He got up slowly, wincing as the early morning sun shone in his eyes. He opened the curtains properly, smiling widely as the city around him looked stunning, with parks that had greener than green grass, and swings that were bright and shiny with new paint. He'd like to go for a walk today, he decided, somewhere quite warm, which had seats for when Vince got tired. He jumped as the door creaked open and Vince peeped round it,

"Babe?" He whispered, hoping not to ruin his fiancé's pondering, but wanting to talk to him. Thankfully, Howard turned, still smiling, but giving the other man his full attention,

"Yeah?" He answered, walking over, the carpetfeeling soft and springy under his feet.

"D'you want some tea? Only, I just made some, and I wanted some company, so…" He smiled rather bashfully as Howard nodded,

"That'd be great". As the older man was walking towards the door, Vince pulled him into a desperate hug, wrapping his arms all the way around the warmer man, who'd been in bed longer.

"Thank you" Howard looked down, bewildered,

"What for?"

"Loving me" Vince answered simply, and took Howard's warm hand and went into the living room, where he had obviously been sat, scribbling on masses of sheets of paper.

As soon as Howard had picked up his tea, Vince sat back down, and started writing once more, his hand flying over the paper, as his handwriting became more errant and smaller.

"What's that?" Howard asked, trying to read some of it, but Vince had his arms over it all, and he could only pick a few words out. Vince looked up and smiled tiredly,

"What time did you get up this morning?" Howard asked, concerned, stopping him answering the first question. Vince blanched but shrugged and said,

"I dunno, maybe about 5? Got up to have a shower, then had some tea, then started writing. I was lonely, but I didn't want to wake you up, 'cause I don't know if I've mentioned it, but you look really cute when you sleep" Howard shook his head fondly and planted a small kiss on Vince's head,

"So what've you been writing?" He asked, drawing Vince's attention back to his work. He smiled up at Howard, who at that point was stood behind the sofa, one hand gently stroking Vince's head and the other resting gently on the smaller man's shoulder, his tea lay forgotten on the kitchen bench. Vince pulled at his hand gently and murmured,

"Come sit down and I'll show you" Howard quirked an eyebrow but walked round the side of the sofa and sat down next to Vince. He immediately got a handful of papers shoved in his face. Putting them on his knee, Howard began to read the top ones, his face gaining a worried look that he shot at Vince when he hoped the smaller man wasn't looking.

"It's everything that happened to me in 1973, and anyone I met, or any places, or even the films and music, look at the detail!" Howard didn't say anything and continued to stare at the paper.

DCI Gene Hunt _(The doctor_), WPC Annie Cartwright (_The physiotherapist) _and a whole handful of others that had been in and out of Vince's room at one point. The films and music were easy enough to place, Vince was a master at music from the 70's and 80's, and the films couldn't be hard to know. Seeing the look on his fiance's face, Vince whispered sadly,

"You don't believe me, do you? You think I'm mad" Howard put the papers on the coffee table and took Vince's hands in his own.

"Look at me. I don't think you're mad. I don't think you made it up either, but you have to understand sweetheart, this can't happen. You were in your bed all through those months, and we both know you have a good imagination, so you could have just invented it to... amuse yourself. You realise the doctor was called..."

"Gene Hunt," Vince interrupted, "He said his grandad was a police officer, so I must have gone back it was... it was _real_, please believe me!" He gazed into Howard's eyes, beseeching him. Howard gazed back.

"I can't" He whispered, voice cracking as Vince's eyes dropped to his lap, studying his hands. Howard gazed at him heartbroken. He needed to make Vince understand it wasn't real. But he didn't know how to. Vince was so set on this, that one wrong word could make him shout, cry, run away, anything. It was then he realised Vince's hands were shaking.

"Vince, relax ok? You have to relax. I know this doesn't help, but you have to or you might get ill" Vince looked back up at him, tears falling down his face.

"I don't know what to do," He whimpered, falling onto Howard, letting the other man bundle him up and rock slightly, "I don't know if it was real or not, or if I'm sane or not. I just... just don't know what to do..." He trailed off and started sobbing silently into Howard.

Howard didn't know what to do either. What could he say? All he could do was continue to show Vince love and comfort until he was over this. Then, a thought struck him,

"Vince, I've got an idea," Vince looked up, tears still sliding gracefully down his face, "Remember what I said last night? We can go to the station, maybe say hi to everyone, and you can look in the archives for all these people," He motioned towards the paper, "And if they're not there, we can forget about it, but if they are..."

"If they are?" Vince repeated, hopefully,

"We'll ask Naboo" Howard finished. It was the best thing he could come up with in the circumstances. Vince nodded and got up, and announced he was going to get ready, leaving Howard sat on the sofa, lost in his thoughts.

--

There was a gasp of delight all round the station as Howard and Vince walked through the doors, Vince uncharacteristically being rather shy and walking slightly behind Howard, holding his hand. They were at once surrounded by hordes of officers, most Vince knew, some he didn't.

"Vince, how are you? Are you even allowed to be working?" A woman with fiery ginger hair Vince knew as 'Cam' from their department asked, before giving Howard a stern look, thinking he was making the smaller man work. He laughed and said,

"As if! I'm not allowed to work for at least two weeks" He grinned at their envious faces and said, "I'm fine though, why? Did Howard not tell you I'd woken up?" He asked, with a slightly hurt tone to his voice,

"Oh he told us" A man with black hair and glasses called Jake said wryly, "I believe he ran in here yelling incoherently and hugging everyone. I think he even managed to hold onto one of us long enough to kiss some of us" Vince giggled as Howard blushed slightly.

"He said I got loads of flowers and cards in my office," Vince grinned, happy to be receiving presents, "Do I?" The whole group of officers nodded as one, and eventually departed, Howard shooing them all away, saying they weren't allowed to tire Vince out,

"You do look after me Mr Moon" Vince giggled, earning him a small tap on the arse as they walked up to his office.

"I arranged them all, and kept watering them, but some of them might have wilted a bit, so I don't know what it'll look like, but..." He was stopped by a pair of lips crushing into his. He eagerly kissed back, and when they finally pulled apart, Vince said,

"Stop it. It'll be perfect, as long as there'relots of them I don't mind" He winked and opened the door, his mouth dropping as soon as he saw his office.

Every person in the station must have given him a whole bouquetof flowers, it was like a flower shop in there. All of it was arranged beautifully, withcolour exploding from every corner, and cards clogging up his desk. He felt Howard gently prodding him towards a huge bouquet, sat right in the middle of his desk. It was stunning. A mixture of white lillies and extremely colourful flowers that Vince had never even seen before, let alone heard of. It had a small card attached to it, so he opened it and read the small message,

_Vince, my soulmate, I'll love you to the ends of the Earth and back, and until the end of time. Even if you never wake up I won't stop loving you.  
Love, forever and always,  
Howard  
xxxxxxxxxxxxx_

Vince sniffed hard,not being able to stop et more tears falling down his face. He looked over at Howard, who had a nervous expression on his face. Not being able to tell him how much he loved him in words, Vince stumbled over and hugged him, sobbing loudly as he nuzzled his head into Howard's chest. Howard understood the hug completely, but couldn't help a few tears escaping either, as he hugged this precious, precious man who he loved so much it hurt.

Not being able to stand the crying much longer, he lifted Vince's head up by his chin and said,

"Hey, I still owe you one trip to the archives don't I?" Vince smiled serenely and nodded, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Ignoring Howard's face, he softly pulled at his hand, leading him out of the room.

--

The archives were on the bottom floor and, although they were allowed to be seen by anyone, only high ranking officers had keys to them, so Howard drew out his key and slid it into the door, and, hearing a satisfying click, he slid it back out again.

"There you go, I need to have a word with Nancy about something" Howard said. Nancy being the officer one rank below Vince, who knew all there was to know about fashion, and she and Vince often had little gossips during breaks. Vince nodded and started down the aisles, turning occasionally down another, always on the lookout for...

There, 1973, officers folder. Taking it off the shelf with shaky fingers, he opened it and leafed through until he found the correct month. Gazing down he read,

_DCI. G. Hunt  
DS. R. Carling  
DC. C. Skelton_

And underneath these, but crossed out in pencil,

_DI. V. Noir_

--

He sat at the desk in the archives for an extremely long time, just sat staring at the folder. Flicking through some more, he saw different sheets of paper, one on each officer. He hurridely scrabbled through until he found _V Noir_'s page.

_Arrival: Transferred from Hyde 14th June 1973  
Parents: Unknown  
Other relations: Unknown  
Departure: 14th August 1973 R.I.P_

It _had _been real. He'd been shot by his dad. And Howard couldn't say it was all coincidence because it was his name there, and everything he said was down here as well. At that moment, Howard came back in, grin dropping slightly as he saw Vince slumped at the table,

"Vince?" He asked, approaching tentatively, "Did you... did you find them?" Not being able to utter a word, he simply nodded and pointed down at his page. Howard scanned a few lines, gasping as he saw that the 'Arrival' and 'Departure' date were the same dates that Vince went into and out of the coma. Even the name was right. Well, it only said 'V. Noir', so maybe it was all just a big coincidence.

"Sweetheart... I know I said we'd talk to Naboo if we found them, but this... I just..."

"You don't believe me," Vince said, "But I can make you believe me. I want to go and meet someone. They'll tell you I'm telling the truth" Howard looked at him, unbelieving, but knew that if this 'meeting' didn't work out, Vince had to accept defeat. So he nodded and followed Vince out the door, not realising he'd ripped a bit out of the folder,

_DCI. G. Hunt  
Current Residence: _

--

"Come on then" Vince nudged Howard, who was sat behind the steering wheel. They'd driven to a quiet part of the city, right in the heart of London that looked extremely familiar to Vince. As he got out the car, he gulped and stepped back slightly. What if the Guv was like, 79 or something? And couldn't remember anything? Vince shook his head, no, he was tough, and could only be about 68.

Howard stepped beside him and gazed at the house, which looked very... 1973. He glanced down uneasily at Vince, terrified he had gone mad because of something he'd dreamt.

"Vince, are you sure about this?" Howard asked, his voice wavering. Vince wasn't at all sure, what if he gave the Guv a stroke or something? Biting his lip, he realised he hadn't really planned it very well. Where was the plan pony when you needed him? However, he nodded and answered,

"Yeah, c'mon, they should be in" Gene was retired by now, and he didn't seem like the type of man who'd go out shopping or whatever. Maybe to the pub, but from what Vince had known of him, he preferred to do that in the afternoon.

Stomach churning, his boots crunched down the gravel path, followed by a much more hesitant crunch. He knew Howard wasn't sure about any of this, but he had to be sure, even if Howard could easily forget about it, he needed to know.

Swallowing, and feeling like he was going to throw up, Vince breathed out slowly and, with Howard's hand on his shoulder, he reached out, and knocked on the door.

**Review? Is the Guv gonna remember and if he does, how's he gonna react? Or was it really all just a big co-inkydink? Only your review will find that out, as it'll spur me on to write faster ;) xx**


	14. Chapter 14

**Sorry it's been quite a while, but this has been fighting since the moment I typed the first word :( Hope you like it, 'cause it was seriously hard to write...  
Disclaimer: ?Yhw**

Vince quickly snatched his hand away as soon as he'd knocked. His palms became clammy and his throat seemed to have constricted as soon as he'd touched the door. He looked behind to see Howard still stood there, with a sympathetic smile on his face, and gently stroked the smaller man's hand before nodding towards the door, which had just started to open.

Swallowing, Vince turned around, and slowly raised his glance from off the floor and into the eyes of the gentle looking old woman who answered. Her eyes widened as both she and Vince stared at each other,

"V…Vince? This is… what?" Vince bit his lip, in all honesty not expecting Hannah to answer to the door. Howard looked extremely confused, so Vince quickly said,

"Howard, Hannah. Hannah, this is Howard, remember when I told you about him?" He didn't expect her to remember; it was over 30 years ago, but to his great surprise she nodded, her mouth gaping open. Vince was about to say more when he heard a shout from inside the house,

"Who is it?" Vince could pick out the guv's voice easily, and looked up into Hannah's eyes, to see what she would do.

"In a minute!" She shouted through, and pulled the door so it was slightly ajar. She looked Vince up and down,

"Can you actually remember me?" Vince asked, his voice shaking. He slid his hand into Howard's, who squeezed back, tightly. The fact that all of what Vince had been saying was true was unbelievable. He'd have to ask Naboo later.

"Hannah, listen. When I met you, I was in a coma. I know it's hard to believe, but I'm from this time now. I only just got out of the coma now, so that must be when I 'died'. Do you believe me?" The woman looked at him with awe flowing from her eyes.

"I do" Vince and Howard's eyes both bulged impressively. How had she accepted that so easily?

"You… you do?" Vince asked hesitantly,

"Oh yes," She replied, simply," I mean, it's a shock, but I definitely met you back then, and you look no different. And you did tell Annie you were in a coma"

"Annie?" Howard questioned, but it was unheard over the squeal Vince gave,

"Annie! You talked to her? Is she ok? Where is she?" Hannah patted his arm and said,

"Maybe you should come in, Gene will be so happy" Vince raised his eyebrows.

"I really don't think so. He didn't really like me all that much" Hannah tapped him on the nose gently,

"Don't be silly. He adored you. Who couldn't? You were adorable," Howard nodded in agreement, "He went to pieces when you died, it took all of my strength not to stop the marriage falling apart" Vince looked down at his feet, a small blush covering his face,

"Sorry" He muttered. All he got was a tut and Hannah's hand grasped his arm, pulling him inside. He quickly glanced back and saw Howard, still holding his hand, following with a scared look on his face. From all that Vince had said or written down, Gene sounded like a frightening person. And what if he had a heart attack or something?

Vince had similar thoughts rushing through his head. What if he killed the guv? Or what if he had a stroke because Vince was engaged to a man? He squeezed Howard's hand tighter and walked behind Hannah through to the living room,

"Gene, there's a visitor for you" Hannah announced, pulling Vince through, releasing his hold on Howard as he stumbled in.

The guv looked up from the paper he had been reading and his mouth dropped open. He glanced from Vince to his wife and back again. His eyes were so wide they challenged the size of Vince's, who stuttered nervously,

"I... hi, Gene, I... erm, sorry about not visiting earlier... I..." He stopped as Gene got up and walked towards him slowly. Then it suddenly all went black.

--

"...had to hit him? What was the point? He just came out of a coma and you punch him!" Vince came round to a sea of voices. It was quite blurry for a while, and no one noticed he was awake until he coughed a bit and heaved himself up. Immediately he was pushed back down to where he had lying on the sofa by Howard's gentle hands, who muttered,

"Just relax little man. You alright?" Vince nodded but persevered until he was sat up, and glared over at Gene, who looked rather bashful. He was prodded in the side by Hannah, so he jumped slightly and said,

"Sorry about that Noir... so er... you were in a coma?" Vince looked over at Howard, who just shrugged, and glanced back, shrugging also, with a slightly apologetic face. Gene let out a long, slow breath and said shakily,

"That's... I. Fuckin' unbelievable. So, you didn't die?"

"Do I look dead?" He asked, grinning slightly, trying to skip the whole 'I don't believe you and I'm going to punch you' thing again. Gene seemed to know what he was doing and turned slightly red,

"I had every right to hit you Noir, you 'die' on me, then you come to my house, _30 years later_, and don't expect a beating? What even possessed you to come here?" Vince pointed at Howard, who blushed and said, rather quietly,

"I didn't really believe him, I thought it was just an over-active imagination" Gene cocked a thumb in his direction,

"So who's this tosser?" Hannah rolled her eyes and did nothing to stop Vince kicking her husband as hard as possible,

"Don't you dare insult him! He's been behind me every step of the way, and I..." He hesitated, knowing precisely the guv's reaction. He glanced over guiltily at Howard, who seemed mildly hurt that Vince wouldn't admit to loving him. This seemed to make his mind up and he took a deep breathing, saying,

"I love him. And... we're getting married" He added the end bit quickly, killing two birds with one stone. Gene turned an odd purple colour, and muttered,

"I guessed. Don't look so surprised," He grumbled, at seeing Vince's face, "The way you waltzed in every morning with bizarre clothes on, talking to the women about how much your shoes cost and where to buy the best hairspray..." He tailed off, rolling his eyes. Vince shrugged, but decided not to pursue it and changed the conversation,

"Y'know, I keep wanting to call you 'guv', but you're not my boss anymore, so I'm gonna have to come up with a better nickname..."

"Don't you even think about it you girl," Gene growled, "I don't bloody well care if you call me guv, 'cause I am not trusting you to come up with a good one" Everyone there rolled their eyes, and Howard took a quick glance at his watch,

"Erm Vince, I told Naboo we'd be in soon, and he wanted to come and see how you were... and I can tell by your face you've got a headache, so we should go" Vince smiled tiredly, loving how Howard could tell instantly if something was bothering him. However, he wasn't finished,

"Can we just have another couple of minutes? I need to know more! What happened after I died? Did I have a nice funeral? Did anyone even go? Hows Annie? Who replaced me? I..." He stopped at the sight of Gene's face.

"How did you actually die Vince?" Howard asked, having not been told,

"He got shot," Gene grumbled, "By..."

"My dad," Vince interrupted glumly. Everyone stared, which made him automatically put up defence, "I _did _go back in time, remember?" Everyone just seemed to accept this and nodded. "Anyway, what happened after?" He asked, eager to know.

"We got your funeral arranged," Gene explained, "Tried to contact any relatives, but obviously we couldn't find any But everyone at the station came, and Annie said that she was going to get your funeral outfit sorted, so you ended up being buried in some weird looking boots that cowboys wear and a weird green top she found in the back of your wardrobe with white lightning strikes down it," He rolled his eyes, showing too clearly what he thought of the outfit,

"Then everyone just sorta... moved on I suppose"

"'Cept you," Vince whispered. Gene blanched but quickly recovered and said,

"I was right as rain after a couple of weeks!" He retorted, "Anyway, we never got another DI. Never got any offers and no one volunteered to be promoted. 'S'like they respected that it was still your position"

Vince was quiet for a couple of minutes before Howard nudged him slightly,

"You need some rest" He said forcefully, before standing up and saying,

"I don't really know what to say. You've kind of convinced Vince hasn't gone mad," He shot a quick smile at Vince, who eagerly returned it and stood up as well,

"I don't know what to say either. I... is it wrong to say I'm glad you missed me?" To his surprise, Gene shook his head, as Hannah said,

"Goodbye then Vince, please keep in touch" He smiled widely and said,

"How about you come to the wedding?" He asked hopefully, looking from both Gene to Hannah. The latter squealed happily and flung her arms round him,

"We'd love to, just send the invite and we'll be there" Vince grinned and hugged her back. Finally, he turned to Gene and, knowing what would happen if he tired to do anything else, stuck out his hand to shake the guv's. However, Gene stepped forward and gave him a rough hug before quickly disappearing into the kitchen and saying,

"Look after yourself Vince"

--

When they were out of the house and driving back home, Vince gave Howard a watery smile,

"I can't believe they remember me" Howard glanced sideways, whilst still keeping his attention on the road,

"Gene punched you" He reminded the smaller man, who shrugged and said,

"They still remembered me though," Before shutting up and and asking, "D'you think Gene'll come? To the wedding I mean"

"Of course he will. I can always tell how other people feel about you, and I could tell that he looked at you like a son or something. And, I could tell how proud he was of you". Vince nodded, before twisting in his seat, so that he could lean against Howard, without his legs complaining. However, the throbbing of his head made a bizarre lullaby, and was soon sleeping, a soft grin on his face.

**Review? Pleasem? And I need help with the wedding song :( Y'know how a couple always has a first dance, like a slowdance? I got two I'm thinking about, but maybe you have any suggestions? xx**


	15. Chapter 15

**Hey ;) Sorry this took so long, and it's not even very good :( These chapters seem to get shorter every time 0.o  
Disclaimer: Not mineeeee**

Howard had managed to carry Vince back up to their flat, unlock the door, and gently put him on the bed. Sighing, he pushed Vince's hair away from his mouth, and whispered lovingly,

"What am I going to do with you, eh?" Vince mumbled something incoherently but didn't stir as Howard noiselessly pulled his boots off, allowing him to roll over and pull the duvet around himself.

Howard stroked the smaller man's hair once more and dragged himself out the room, letting the door silently swing shut, as he contemplated what to do next.

He fell onto the sofa heavily, letting out a deep breath. He was overwhelmed by it all. Everything he ever thought was fact and scientific was gone. Blasted away in an instant. Of course he believed in magic, it was impossible not to where he lived, but it was so bizarre that his fiancée had actually travelled back in time that he didn't know how to comprehend it. The only logical thing to do was call Naboo.

--

"Howard open the door you ballbag!" Naboo's irate voice travelled through the door, which Howard had somehow not heard to be knocking for the past ten minutes. Trying not to look needy, he sauntered towards the door, casually opening it and leaning against the door frame,

"Alright?" He asked, trying to imitate Vince's devil-may-care charm. He failed. Naboo raised an eyebrow and said,

"You called me and babbled into the phone for about ten minutes about time travel. I was halfway convinced that you'd gotten drunk and Vince had coerced you into doing some twisted Doctor Who role-play." Howard stood there with his mouth wide open before shaking his head and saying,

"Look, I don't know what to do Naboo, we need help" The shaman cocked his head slightly with a slight look of interest in his eyes,

"Is it with the wedding? 'Cause I can find somewhere dirt cheap that'll fit loads of people, and…" He was interrupted by Howard,

"Naboo, firstly, Vince would kill you if anyone but him chose anything to do with the wedding and secondly, no. Something really weird happened," Naboo was still looking at him, and Howard knew he had him hooked, "Come and sit down" Howard offered, motioning towards the sofa before sitting down himself.

"So?" Naboo asked, "What happened?"

"When Vince woke up from, y'know… the coma, he said that he'd gone back in time, and he was a DI back in 1973. Here, he wrote loads of stuff that happened to him, or the people he met, look at all the detail" He passed the sheets of paper over to the shaman, who took them wordlessly and read through them.

"Howard," He started, cautiously, "I know you love Vince, and… fine, I do as well, but I think we should take him to a psychiatrist, something obviously happened from when he either hit his head in the accident, or when he crashed for a while, it must have starved his brain of oxygen for a while…"

"It's all true," Howard murmured, ignoring Naboo's face, "All of it"

"Howard, you're only saying that so you don't hurt his feelings, but this can't happen…" Naboo started again, trying to make Howard see reason, but Howard shook his head adamantly,

"I thought that as well, when he told, but he… we went down the archives and he looked these people up…"

"Howard," Naboo croaked, "It was all in his head…"

"And they were all there! And he was as well!" Howard continued, acting as thought there hadn't been an interruption, "It had his death date down, because apparently before he came back to us he got shot and…" Howard tailed off, realising what he'd just said. Never, ever, since joining the police had he had anyone fatally wounded. And it was someone who he cared about more than ever. He hadn't even been there to help.

"Howard," Naboo began, trying to console him, "Even if all you're saying is true, he wasn't really shot was he?" Howard shrugged, and glanced towards the bedroom door, hoping Vince was still asleep.

"It _is _all true Naboo," He insisted, "We even went to see his DCI, and he and his wife both remembered Vince! Ok, so he was definitely in the hospital all through it, but he was really there, he really had gone back in time, to 1973! He met his dad!" Naboo paled slightly,

"I think something like this has happened before," Naboo said shakily, "I'm sure Saboo mentioned it once, some guy went back in time after falling off a building, he tried to top himself, and met someone he knew, and almost killed himself there, he created a paradox, all because he touched the guy he knew. It didn't happen right then and there, but a few weeks later, for no reason, he just died. All because he touched this guy". Howard had started shaking and clutching onto the sofa cushions,

"So if Vince made any kind of contact with his dad?..." He said, throat feeling dry and scratchy,

"Then he could have made a paradox" Naboo finished grimly.

"What do we do?" Howard whispered,

"Wait," Naboo advised, "And ask him to think, think really hard. Ask if he touched his dad. I'll go see the shaman council immediately" He swiftly stood up and was hurrying towards the door, before stopping and twirling round so fast he almost fell over, hearing a meek voice from the bedroom,

"I didn't" Vince murmured, limping slightly over to the sofa, which Howard noticed and forgot about the matter in hand as he started to fuss over the smaller man,

"Are you ok sweetheart? Do you need anything? Painkillers? Tea?" Vince shook his head but took Howard's hand, pulling him gently onto the sofa so he was sat next to him, allowing Vince to curl up and rest his head in his fiancée's lap.

"Are you sure Vince?" Naboo asked, persistent. Vince nodded and said,

"I only talked to him. I saw my mum though," He paused, trying to remember everything about her, "She was really pretty, loved my dad. And… he was… he was the one who shot me" He whispered, which only Howard could hear, and it was obvious to Naboo that Vince had said something appalling because Howard's fingers had suddenly stopped running through Vince's hair, and he started whispering urgently to the smaller man, which Naboo took as his cue to leave,

"Yeah so… I'll pop by in the week?" He muttered, timidly, before simply walking out and quietly closing the door.

Meanwhile, Howard was trying to convince his fiancée that that wasn't what his dad must have been like,

"Think about it Vince," He said earnestly, "He would _never _shoot the son he loved so much. He only shot you because he thought you were trying to take him away from his family. He had no idea" Vince nodded morosely, before saying,

"D'you wanna start planning the wedding?" Immediately taking his mind off what he had been thinking about so morbidly. Howard brightened as well, glad that Vince was happy, and that he was actually going to have _some_ say in it.

--

"Jazz!"

"Electro!"

"_Jazz!"_

"_Electro!"_

This argument had gone on for more than ten minutes now, both men fighting over the choice of song. Vince had insisted on a traditional type of wedding, which meant that they had to not see each other before the ceremony, and also meant that they had to have a 'first dance' as a married couple. Which brought about the dilemma of music. They were going to have a DJ for the night do, but Vince had wanted a special song for them to dance to. Eventually, Howard held up a hand,

"What if… we don't have either jazz or electro. What if we have…something _traditional_, like you wanted. A slow love song to dance to"

"But they're soppy and boring" Vince moaned, putting on a childish voice to show he wasn't _totally _against the idea. Howard grinned as he tried get up and over into the kitchen without messing up the masses of piles of paper that Vince had put together, with various flower arrangements, seating, menu, drinks, the cars they would arrive in, the place itself… The list went on.

"What if we have an Elvis song?" Howard suggested, quickly scanning the row of CD's they had stacked up in the kitchen,

"Isn't he mostly jazz?" Vince asked, disdain in his voice,

"No, jazz is much better than Elvis!" Howard argued, "What if we have 'Can't help falling in love with you'?" Vince shrugged and said,

"I dunno, what about this one?" He slid an anonymous CD into the player and chose the right song. After a few seconds, Howard grinned and said,

"It's perfect" And braved the paper mountains again just so he could kiss Vince on the nose,

"It's ok I suppose," Vince said, trying and failing to sound modest, "We should make a list, I still like that Elvis one" Howard nodded and scrabbled through a draw to find another pen.

When he was sat down next to Vince again, he had a quick scan of the arrangements, and his widened in horror,

"Vince, we are not getting Gok Wan to do your hair and make-up, or have Jeremy Clarkson to drive the car. And said car is _not _going to be a million pound Aston martin that we'll only need for about half an hour!"

"What about after?" Vince countered, "What about when we drive off?" Howard tried to hide a grin as he said,

"I've already got something in mind for that, I think you'll like it" Vince smiled and turned back to his lists,

"Right, shall we have Lilies or Roses? And shall we have French Champagne or Flirtinis? Or should we have both?"

Howard sighed. This was going to burn such a deep hole in his pocket.

**Any ideas for wedding songs? I got one in mind which is the one Vince put on, but I didn't name it :P Review? xx**


	16. Chapter 16

**Yo ;) Sorry 'bout how long it took :)**

_You are formally invited to the wedding of:_

Howard Moon  
And  
Vince Noir,

**C'mon Howard, this is well boring, can't I write the invites?  
**_Vince! Don't write on them, we'll have to start them again!  
_**You'll have to start again, I haven't been able to write anything yet!  
**_You're writing now! I'm going to have to start again  
_**I'm gonna send this one though.  
**_Do with it what you will little man  
_**Cool, photocopier here I come,**

Below this was a scribbled part about the place and time, but that was about it. Vince had obviously done what he'd threatened in the invite and photocopied the graffitied one, sending them all out before Howard could get round to writing new ones. Naboo grinned at it, a typical Vince invitation, with glitter glue used to write his name and address on the envelope and for some reason when the shaman had opened it up, some sugar sprinkles used to decorate cakes had fallen out along with the invite.

He was so happy Vince was awake. Ok, he didn't like showing that he sometimes liked Howard (Or Vince for that matter) but it was horrible seeing how upset Howard was, how depressed he had become. He had watched open mouthed at the hospital, day after day as Howard just sat and watched the smaller man, never moving and occasionally talking to him. And then that day when Vince woke up, Naboo felt a bubble-like presence in his chest, feeling so happy he might have burst.

He never thought his friends would have made it this far. Of course he knew they'd be together for... well, ever, but he just could never have imagined them finally tying the knot. He grinned as Bollo walked over,

"Finally got the invite" Naboo lisped, and passed it up to the gorilla. He studied it for a moment and smiled, nodding happily,

"I got a good feeling about this"

--

Vince fidgeted awkwardly on the sofa as Howard was sat beside him, writing out new invites. He'd not had a very good day so far, his legs had kept twinging and he'd had a huge headache that started at around 9 in the morning and hadn't finished until lunchtime. What he didn't need was for Howard to start shouting because he'd sent out the ruined invitations. He'd cursed himself as soon as he'd posted them all, trying to wedge his hand back into the post box to get them out. He'd wanted a perfect white wedding, and now he'd ruined it himself, sending out stupid invites. He sighed heavily, something Howard picked up on,

"What's wrong? Is it your head?" Vince shook it and mumbled,

"Sorry" Perplexed, Howard asked,

"Why?" Vince glanced up sorrowfully and said

"I sent out those invitations that we scribbled on, so now everyone's been invited, but with one of them" He rushed it, and started to nervously twist his hands together. Howard didn't say anything, and when Vince looked up, he saw he was laughing,

"What?" Vince said, quite defensively. Howard shook his head and beamed fondly at Vince,

"Vince, did you honestly think I'd mind that you sent out different invitations? It saves me writing them out! I love you, and this is you, so why should I expect anything less from you?" He leant forward and lightly kissed Vince on the lips, and stood up, stretching,

"Well, since I don't have anything else to do, I think I might get a book out" Vince stood up as well and argued,

"But that's boring! Let's do something fun! How about... how about we have a party? It'll be fun! We could..." he stopped at the look on Howard's face, "Fine... Oh! I know! We should plan our bachelor parties! That'll be fun, I can think of loads of people to invite, and the place..."

"Vince, two parties will be way too expensive"

"C'mon Howard, I know yours won't be expensive at all! You'll just invite Lestor and that old guy, Horace then settle down for ten hours of that freak with the big face" Howard couldn't argue with any of this so shrugged,

"I'm not paying for yours Vince, I think I've already paid more than my fair share for the wedding itself" Vince smiled beguilingly and said,

"And that's why I love you" Howard smiled back,

"Oh really? Because I'm the only one you know will pay for anything you want?" Vince nodded and winked,

"I'm gonna go, I'll call everyone I know and tell them to get a wriggle on, we'll meet at a club and see what happens"

"Vince, there's no point having it now, you're _supposed _to have it the night before the wedding, your 'last night of freedom'" Howard reprimanded. Vince grinned,

"It's not as if it's that far away! It's on Sunday! That's in like... 5 days..." He trailed off, horror-struck, "Oh my god, five days! There's so much to do! I need to get my suit sorted out, _and _yours, I need to check with the caterers and make sure they're ready, the car, the rings, the seating..."

Howard closed his eyes for a second and opened them when he was slightly more calm. Striding over, he took Vince's shoulders firmly and led him over to the sofa,

"Vince, _calm down_. I can't do this on my own, so you need to be completely with me to keep me on track"

"I'm second-in-command" Vince murmured, in a nostalgic tone. Howard grinned and patted him on the head,

"We're together on this, we're both second-in-command... or... first, whichever. Now, deep breath, and sit down on the sofa, and we can arrange the seating" Vince gave him a small smile and a hug, and sat down.

**-- 4 days to go --**

"Howard!!! Have you seen the form I had for the caterers? I was supposed to take it down to today and I can't find it!" Vince ended this with a childish whine, and was frantically throwing carious peices of paper in the air from the table. Howard sighed and ran in from where he had been in the bedroom, nervously running his hands up and down his suit and took Vince's hands,

"Sweetheart, it's exactly where you left it, on the kitchen bench. And you're meeting them in an hour, so just relax, everything will be fine" Vince moaned,

"Stop saying that! You'll jinx it! I need to make sure nothing can go wrong, I'm not having anything going wrong at my wedding!" He pouted, but coughed slightly as Howard raised an eyeborw, "I... I meant _our _wedding"

"Sure you did"

**-- 3 days to go --**

Naboo rang the doorbell and entered, his mouth gaping as he saw how harrassed Howard (But especially Vince) looked.

"Why did you call me?" He asked, having recieved a phone call half an hour before, getting Vince sqwauking down the phone, telling him to hurry.

"I've lost the receipt for the flowers" Vince choked out, looking as though he was about to burst into tears. Naboo raised an eyebrow and looked over at Howard, surprised that he didn't have the same look on his face,

"Oh," Was all he could say, "And you wanted me here because?..." Vince leapt over to him and clung onto his arm,

"You can magic up another one can't you?" He begged, blue eyes staring deep into the shaman's own, "Because they won't let us have the flowers without the receipt, and then we won't have time to order new ones, and then the whole wedding'll look horrible, and then..." Naboo held up a hand, allowing Vince to draw breath,

"Is this what you were looking for?" Naboo asked, whipping a reciept out of nowhere and handing it to him, his eyes widening as Vince shrieked and threw his arms round the small man, squeezing him tightly.

"I love you Naboo! Maybe you can magic up some more money next? To help pay for everything?" Vince asked, grinning at the small peice of paper he had in his hand. Naboo shook his head, walking out the door,

"Sorry Vince, I made an oath, to only use my powers for good. Besides," he added, closing the door, "You left the reciept at mine you tit"

**-- 2 days to go --**

"What are we having to take us from the church to the reception?" Vince asked, clinging to Howard's hand and swinging it, "You told me not to bother booking another car" Howard looked up, grinning widely,

"That I did little man," He said, "I booked us something else" Vince beamed,

"What is it? Come on... you can tell me" Howard laughed, but said,

"Well... it's not much, just a little carriage to drive us there... pulled by a white horse. And I might have asked Naboo to loan Gary out of his cupboard for the day, to drive the carriage" He smiled at Vince, who had a shocked look on his face.

"Vince?" Howard said, quite nervous as the smaller man wasn't speaking, but gazing at him with his mouth wide open. Suddenly, Howard jumped two feet in the air as Vince yelled,

"Oh my god!!! You're joking! Seriously?" He shrieked loudly, "I love you! I..." He started giggling in shock, and dragged Howard towards the bedroom, the door swinging shut in their wake.

**-- 1 day to go --**

"Is everything ready? My suit, my hair, my make-up, the flowers, the cake, the rings, the car, the food, the drinks, your suit, the place, the time..." Vince sat hunched over the table, scribbling down everything on a long sheet of paper. Howard had muttered the other night that Vince was quite possibly obsessed, but Vince himself thought he could have been alot worse.

"Vince, come on, you've scrawled over that paper for most of the day, it's going to be _fine_." Howard had come into the room with a small suitcase and his suit carefully wrapped over his arm in a bag. This seemed to bring Vince to his senses. He leapt up and went over to his almost-husband, who was going to stay at Naboo's until the wedding,

"God, can you belive it's already here?" Vince asked, croakily. Several tears were threatening to spill over his lids, "I'm going to miss you" He whispered, scared of hugging Howard in case he messed the suit in the bag up. Howard seemed to sense his fear and gave Vince a one armed hug, before kissing him softly on the nose,

"We'll see each other before you know," He said, "And we'll be married when we do" He grinned, glad to get a smile out of the smaller man. After one last kiss he rubbed Vince's arm and stepped out the door, not hearing the small sob that issued from within the flat when he closed the door.

**I've got so many things wrong with me at the moment lol, a review would really help me feel better :( The heatings broken, my toes broken, I think my computers breaking :( Ah well. Oh yeah! Has anyone ever read a series of books called 'The Shapeshifter' by Ali Sparkes? 'Cause I asked for a section for that, bu you can only see it if you publish a story in it, but it is there! So if you like those books and wanna do a fanfic on them, theres a section now ^^ xx**


	17. Chapter 17

**Hey, sorry about the huge wait and everything :) I swear I never used to be this slow at updating ;) Thanks to everyone who read this and an even bigger thankyou to those of you who reviewed :) I'm kinda gonna miss this story :P  
Disclaimer: Not mine. None of the characters described in this last chapter are mine.**

Only a few hours after Howard left the flat for Naboo's, Vince rang him. A few seconds passed before he picked up, already having recognized the caller ID,

"_Vince, I love you too, but you really have to be a bit less clingy."_

"Yeah yeah, I love you too. Listen, this wasn't to say I miss you, well… I do, honest, but where did you put those pain tablets?" He bit his lip as he knew at that second Howard had started to worry,

_"Is it your head? Or your legs? Get some hot water from the kettle and put in that Lemsip mixture I bought, or maybe you should try a warm towel over you face... or legs, or..."_

"Howard, relax, I'm fine, I just need to know where the tablets are." Vince said, slowly and calmly, taking care not to let out just how much pain he was in, it was as though he had cramp all the way down his leg. How would he manage to walk down the aisle tomorrow if he couldn't actually walk?

_"Vince? Are you listening? Is everything ok? I'll come back if you want, I'm terrified something's going to happen to you" _Vince smiled as he listened to Howard's over-protectiveness and ran his hands down the phone, as if he was sure Howard would be able to feel that,

"I'll be fine Howard, just tell me where they are, and I'll see you tomorrow," He heard a laugh down the phone, "What? What's so funny?" He demanded,

_"Vince, you're acting as though we're meeting up for lunch, never mind getting married. And knowing you, you'll call at the very least twice tonight, and maybe half way through the night to check I'm still here." _Vince sniffed and nodded to himself,

_"I'm going to have to go sweetheart, Naboo's complaining about the phone bill..."_

"_I'm _calling _you_!" Vince said, outraged,

_"I think he's high," _Howard responded, _"Listen, I'll see you tomorrow, and I'll talk to you when you phone, just promise me you'll get some sleep, and call me if your head or legs get worse." _Vince nodded, feeling very teary and lonely and whispered,

"Love you."

_"I love you too little man. Get some sleep." _He hung up, and Vince let the phone slip through his fingers and fall on the floor. However, he realised he hadn't actually found out where the pain tablets were, but just shrugged, not having the energy to get up off the sofa and go and look. Just then, there was a knock on the door. Raising his eyebrows, and wondering who could have come round this time of night, he heaved himself up and limped over to the door.

Opening it, he found Naboo on the other side.

"Naboolio! What're you doing here?" He asked, careful not to let on the pain he was in. However, Naboo gave him his usual deadpan expression and passed him a carrier bag,

"Howard said you sounded like you were in agony and made me come round here with some strong painkillers," he said and walked in, saying, "He also said you sounded miserable and lonely," He ignored the indignant humph that Vince sent out, "So he said I should keep you company for a while"

"How did you get here so fast?" Vince asked, happy he had someone to talk to,

"My carpet," He answered, "I've used some of my golden carpet miles on you." He frowned, but his eyes widened as Vince pulled him into a hug, whirling him round and shrieking,

"I'm getting married tomorrow!"

"Don't I know it." Naboo grumbled, and was forced to endure Vince's chatter until the young man finally fell asleep on the sofa, allowing the shaman to creep out and rub his forehead. If any of his friends announced they were getting married again, he'd disown them.

--

Vince woke up with a blanket over him and in quite an uncomfortable position on the sofa. He groaned and hastily took some of the painkillers Naboo had brought round. While he shook his head to get rid of any sleep, he remembered what today was,

"Oh my god!" He screamed, and ran for the bathroom, ignoring the protest in his legs. He had, he glanced at the clock, 5 hours. He had 5 hours to be ready to go when the car pulled up outside. It was impossible, he'd never achieve such a high level of perfection in that time!

--

Howard had tossed and turned all night, butterflies in his stomach making him feel like he was going to be sick. He sat up, seeing it was now a respectable time to wake up. However, he also saw that it was only _5 hours _until he was getting in that car to go to the church. He'd never battle his nerves in that time!

Hastily jumping out of bed, he rushed out to find his suit ready and hung up in the bathroom, the emersion on so that he could have a warm shower, and a cup of strong tea ready on the table. He smiled, knowing that as long as he kept Vince happy, Naboo and Bollo would always be half-way decent to him.

--

Oh god, he had less than two hours! His hands were shaking as he sat in front of the huge mirror in their bedroom, doing his make-up. Vince had never been more nervous. Even the huge crimp-off wasn't as nerve wracking as this. He now had precisely 1 hour and 45 minutes to do his make-up, his hair already been done and given the Vince Noir seal of approval. He was sat in his suit, which had been tailored by the same person who had made David Bowie's suits and his shoes by the same people who made Mick Jagger's. It had been expensive, but worth it, Vince thought, checking himself out in the mirror.

He finished with 5 minutes to spare. He used this time to stand in front of the mirror and wonder what was the best kind of smile to have on when walking down the aisle. Coy, happy, suggestive... Wait, wasn't suggestive the same as coy? he shook his head, trying to stop thinking, his brain already throbbing when he tried to read the instructions for the new kettle Howard had bought a few days ago.

--

Howard smoothed down his shirt. Less than two hours to go. 1 hour and 45 minutes to go. His hair was naturally tousled (At least, that's what he told everyone. He had brushed it, but it didn't need _styling_) and he was Howard Moon, Man of Action, he didn't need eye liner or blusher, he was naturally handsome. Well, so was Vince, his make-up just accentuates it all. Stuttering into his head he didn't mean what he said, Howard groaned. He desperately needed to stop talking to himself.

He spent the remaining 1 hour and 45 minutes sat on the end of his bed, breathing deeply into a paper bag.

--

Vince started fidgeting in the car. Although he was terrfied he would spoil his suit or his hair, he couldn't sit still. He tried to think of something else. _Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens..._ He shook his head. He'd always hated that film, he didn't have a clue about what as happening half the time. Why was Julie Andrews running over the hills whilst singing with some children? And why did she marry a Nazi? Wait, was he the Nazi or were they running from Nazis? And why did that man have so many children? He liked children, but so many could get annoying, especially little goody-two shoes.

If he ever had kids... He stopped in his thinking. That wouldn't be possible now. He'd be with Howard forever, and... could they adopt? How did Howard feel about children?

"Sir?" The driver said, turning round from his seat, "We're here."

**--Howard's POV--**

I felt sick as I stood at the front of that church. A huge congregation of people, including my parents and most of my family, and Vince's friends, his _decent _friends, were there as well. Naboo and Bollo were sat somewhere near the front, although I couldn't really see anything, not paying attention to anything except that front door, paying so much attention to it that everything else was blurry. Soon, the love of my life would be walking through there, smiling just for me.

It was agony the past few months. The feeling that I'd never see my Vince smile again, or that I'd never get to kiss him, never get to feel him kissing back, or when his eyes lit up, just for me. He was magical. And mine.

The waiting's intense, I feel like Larry Edison when he first experimented with his two fingered trumpet solo. The butterflies are building, I'm going to be sick unless Vince hurries up. Why does he have to keep me waiting all the time? Knowing full well that it's killing me when I can't see him, he...

Silence has completely fallen in the room, the door just opened, the music's started.

There he is.

**--Vince's POV--**

Ok Vince, just breathe and you'll be fine. I was pacing up and down in front of the doors, twisting my hands until my fingers nearly snapped off. I can do this, I know I can. It's like a gig. Stood in front of a large crowd, all of 'em hanging on to your every word.

"Sir? Are you going in?" The driver, fuckin' twat, asking me all the way there personal questions, badly flirting with me. He's got a point at the moment though, I've kinda got to go in. If I don't, Howard'll hate me forever.

C'mon Vince, what're you playing at? Vince Noir, getting stage fright? Role reversal or what? Howard's the one who panicks, he's the one who doesn't want to go in front of people. Yet he's in there in front of everyone. Family, friends. All on his own, right at the front.

That made up my mind. My Howard can't go through that alone (Well he wouldn't do it alone if I was there, but you get what I mean, I'm just kinda high off Beachems).

I took a deep breath, for some weird reason I winked at the driver, and threw open the doors, hearing the music start as soon as I did.

There he is.

--

Naboo smiled (For once not high) as Vince strolled casually up the aisle, not that practised stroll brides do, moving one foot at a time, he managed it with style. Grinning at Howard and blushing slightly, he got closer to the front. His hair, having had 3 hours of solid styling, was now feathery and bouncy, shining under the lights in the room. His suit a dazzling white, with a pale pink tie and white boots (Although if you asked him to pull his trouser leg up, you'd see it had swirly black patterns down the sides).

Howard was dressed similarly, but he had a black jacket on over his suit, and Naboo highly doubted that Howard's shoes were the same. Now finally up to the front, Vince shyly took Howard's hand and squeezed it tightly, smiling at the taller man and having nothing but adoration in his eyes.

As the vicar started the sermon, Howard kept sliding his eyes across to look at Vince, who was nibbling at his lip and looking toward the vicar, trying to pay attention and pretending to understand what he was on about, which gave him an adorable confused/worried look. He jumped a bit as the vicar said,

"You wrote your own vows?" Howard nodded and slipped his free hand into his pocket, eyes widening as he saw out of the corner of his vision Vince hurriedly going through his pockets, a feverish glint in his eyes as he looked over at Howard with huge frightened eyes. He mouthed to Howard, _I've forgotten mine._

Rolling his eyes, Howard stuck his back in his pocket and turned to face Vince, holding his hands and looking right into his eyes, took a deep breath, and began.

"Vince. The most important thing in my life is your happiness. What I want, every morning for you, is to wake up and smile. Your eyes twinkling in the sun as you look at me with that adorable expression of peace, first thing on the morning. What happened during that two months when you were...sleeping, it was as if the whole of me had been split. I can't live without you, and I hope that if I achieve nothing else in my life, I'm going to make sure you're never hurt. You're my everything, my sunlight, my other half, and I'll love you until the earth stops spinning, and even after that. I love you Vince."

As there was a smattering of applause, Vince hugged Howard, clinging on tight and sobbing onto his suit. Pushing the smaller man's chin up with his fingers, Howard smiled into his eyes and whispered,

"Cheer up little man, it wasn't _that _bad." Vince gave a watery smile and carefully wiped his eyes, careful not smudge anything. Finally he looked up and started,

"Howard, you're my soul mate. If I ever leave you again, I don't know what to do. For two months I was pining for you, I can't describe how bad it was. When you're not here, it's as if I'm invisible. You make me, me. Being with you makes me feel so happy it's..." He stopped for a moment, trying to articulate what he felt. Unfortunately, words failed him so he simply finished with, "I love you Howard, if I ever say anything different, I deserve to be put in another coma. All I know is, you don't deserve me."

Howard bit his lip to stop himself bursting into tears. He glanced at the vicar who nodded and continued. Naboo brought the rings forward and they exchanged them.

"Then I declare you bonded for life" The vicar ended, and this was Vince and Howard's cue to kiss. They did so, and were aware of everyone in the church clapping, all of Howard's female relatives were crying into tissues, not trying to stay quiet. When they finished, Vince looked up into Howard's eyes,

"We actually made it didn't we?" He asked, beaming happily. Howard nodded and they both turned around, where throngs of waiting people were waiting to congratulate them.

**-- The song is called 'So Close' by Jon Mclaughlin. It helps during this scene if you're listening to it, so: h t t p : / / w w w . y o u t u b e. c o m / w a t c h ? v = F H 8 W A o R L 1 x o**** (Just take the spaces out :P)--**

"Ladies and Gentlemen will you please look to the dance floor, for the first dance." The DJ called, making all eyes look to the floor as Vince and Howard walked on, holding hands and smiling. The music started and Howard pulled his new husband close, loving the feel of Vince's warmth near his body. As the first chords struck, Vince put his arms around Howard and they swayed slightly, in time with the music.

**You're in my arms,  
****And all the world is calm,  
****The music playing on,  
****For only two,  
****So close, together,  
****And when I'm with you,  
****So close, to feeling alive,**

Howard gave Vince a small kiss, and moved him closer, moving a tiny bit faster,

**A life goes by,  
****Romantic dreams will stop,  
****So I bid mine, goodbye, and never knew,  
****So close,  
****Was waiting, waiting here, with you,  
****And now, forever I know…**

Howard twirled Vince a bit, loving the calm breathing of the man opposite him,

**All that I wanted, to hold you, so close,  
****So close,  
****To reaching, that famous happy end,  
****And almost, believing, this was not pretend,  
****And now you're, beside me,  
****And look how far we've come,  
****So far,  
****We are,  
****So close.**

The room started clapping as they started twirling, faster, Vince's breathing becoming faster as the crescendo went up and down, coming back into excited bursts before calming and continuing, Vince kissing Howard slightly on the cheek,

**Oh how, could I face, the faceless days,  
****If I should lose you now?  
****We're, so close,  
****To reaching,  
****That famous happy end,  
****And almost, believing,  
****This was not pretend,  
****Let's go, on dreaming,  
****Though we know we are…  
****So close,  
****So close, yet still,  
****So far…**

The music faded and they finished, kissing passionately as everyone clapped once more. Vince had tears in his eyes from the music and smiled as their guests decided to dance, the floor now being full, allowing him to dry his tears on Howard's shirt.

--

The night had gone off to a superb start, as everyone there had laughed together, having been pouring wine down their throats and several (Vince mainly) getting _very _bouncy after the four tiered wedding cake which had lots of coloured icing on it. Everyone apart from Naboo and Bollo had danced, the shaman and his familiar preferring to sit at the bar and down shots, while occasionally glancing over to the dancing couples.

'Funky Town' had blasted on, meaning Vince had dragged Howard onto the dance floor, pulling shapes as though he was the one who was performing it. Holding Howard's hands through all of it, swinging him around, Vince's boot made contact with a table leg, and he tripped, almost falling over, threatening to pull Howard with him. However, a pair of huge hands grabbed him and pulled him upright.

Beaming, he turned to find his saviour, and came face to face with Gene. Behind him, Hannah was grinning and waved merrily at Vince,

"Hello dear! We just wanted to say congratulations! We left your present on that table." She motioned toward a huge table with a white tablecloth on it, stacked with presents. Vince grinned, he loved getting things. Guessing it was the polite thing to do, he held his hand out to Hannah and said,

"May I?". She giggled and allowed him to swing her onto the dance floor. Howard now leant against the table Vince had tripped over and bit his lip. He'd never had a conversation with this man, and there was an awkward silence for a few minutes, as both watched their respectable partners dance. Eventually, Howard cleared his throat and said,

"Thanks. For, y'know, catching Vince before he nearly killed himself." Gene grunted,

"S'fine, I always had to save him from something." He stopped and looked down into his drink. Reading the man's mind, Howard leant nearer to him and said, rather conspiratorially,

"Did he _really _go back in time? It's just, that's not possible! He was in that hospital bed the whole time!" Gene downed his drink in one and said,

"Be that as it may pal, he was definitely part of my time back in the day. Little bugger."

"Tell me what he was like." Howard implored, eager to know what had happened. Musing for a second, Gene said,

"Well, he was always faffing about with some part of his face or another, always telling the WPC's what to wear with their uniforms, how to 'ave their hair. And he fainted once or twice," Gene added, remembering more, "Saw a puddle of blood and he was down like a shot. He annoyed the hell out of me. Always arguing, telling me I was wrong, grinned smugly when he was right. Little prick." He finished his little rant and allowed Howard to raised his eyebrows invitingly, but seeing that Gene wasn't going to offer anything else, he was forced to stand in silence until suddenly,

"I missed him," Gene muttered, "When he got shot, I honestly didn't think that he would die. Might have had to spend a week or two in hospital, but I thought he'd be fine. Kind of… shut myself off for a few weeks. No one else seemed to care, so I had to grieve for them all." Howard sighed, sad that this man had to carry this huge burden on his own, and that no one had seemed to be too bothered about Vince dying. He shuddered at the thought of his husband dying, and thrust it to the back of his mind before asking,

"Why are you telling me this? You've never told anyone else, so why someone you've never met until a few weeks ago, and haven't even talked to?"

"Just thought that you might need more convincing. From what I knew of Noir, if no one believed him he'd get quite… rash. Do anything to make you believe him," He paused as the song had ended, and both Vince and Hannah were coming back, "Look after him," Gene finished, "He's a copper you don't want to loose. And a friend or… husband, whatever he is to you."

He finished this gruffly, and Howard knew he was extremely homophobic, so he must have liked Vince a lot to have come to his wedding. Howard nodded at Gene as Vince came bouncing back,

"Alright babe!" He grinned at Howard, pulling him into a hug, "We have to dance to this one!" He yelled, as David Bowie's 'Ashes to Ashes' came on.

"Wait a sec!" Gene said, putting a hand on Vince's arm. Looking at him quizzically, Gene gave him a tenner.

"Remember that bet we had ages ago? You said in 1980 Bowie would release a song called 'Ashes to Ashes'. Here." With that he gave Vince the money and after a small, whispered argument with his wife, hugged him and went. Hannah smiled and hugged Vince too,

"Good luck dear," She said, "I'm so happy for you. The both of you." She walked off as well, and Vince grinned up at Howard, stuffing the tenner in his pocket,

"Imagine that?" Vince exclaimed, "Him remembering after all this time!" Howard rolled his eyes and said,

"It's just like you to place a bet on something that hasn't happened yet. I'm sure that's cheating, they weren't to know you were from the future."

"Stop moaning Howard!" Vince giggled, "Enjoy the night, we're never gonna see this amount of luxury or presents again." Howard chortled and swung Vince into a dance, loving the flushed colour of his skin and the sparkle in his eyes, as Vince, quite unaware he was being stared at, grinned so widely he was sure his face would crack.

"I love you." He whispered, as a new song was starting. David Bowie again.

"Dance with me?" Howard asked, jokingly, knowing Vince would jump at the chance. They started a slow dance, right in the centre of the floor.

**It's a god-awful small affair  
To the girl with the mousy hair  
But her mummy is yelling "No"  
And her daddy has told her to go  
But her friend is nowhere to be seen  
Now she walks  
Through her sunken dream  
To the seats with the clearest view,  
Now she's hooked to the silver screen  
But the film is a saddening bore,  
For she's lived it ten times or more,  
She could spit in the eyes of fools,  
As they ask her to focus on,**

Vince grinned at the very familiar song, feeling suddenly home sick as the chorus started,

**Sailors, fighting in the dance hall,  
Oh man, look at those cavemen go,  
It's the freakeiest show,  
Take a look at the lawman,  
Beating up the wrong guy,  
Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know,  
He's in the best-selling show,  
Is there life on mars?**

He snuggled into Howard's chest, the song weirdly ironic, though he wasn't sure how.

**It's on Amerika's tortured brow  
That Mickey Mouse  
has grown up a cow  
Now the workers  
have struck for fame  
'Cause Lennon's on sale again,  
See the mice in their million hordes,  
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads,  
Rule Britannia is out of bounds,  
To my mother, my dog and clowns,  
But the film is a saddening bore,  
'Cause I wrote it ten times or more,  
It's about to be writ again,  
As I ask you to focus on,**

Vince was well aware that everyone's gaze was on them as they slowly danced around the room, the whole room getting slightly hazy as his consciousness was leaving him, being absolutely shattered and barely managing to keep his eyes open.

"We goin' soon?" He asked Howard, voice slurred in tiredness, "I wanna be driv'n home by Numan…" Howard smiled and propped him up,

"Soon love, let's just finish the dance and go outside, Naboo can take care of the guests and everything." Vince nodded and hugged Howard more, warmness washing over him as they finished dancing, the last words of the song ringing in Vince's ears,

**Sailors, fighting in the dance hall,  
Oh man, look at those cavemen go,  
It's the freakeiest show,  
Take a look at the lawman,  
Beating up the wrong guy,  
Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know,  
He's in the best-selling show,  
Is there life on mars?**

**Thanks for reading everyone :) I just wanna thank all the reviewers, and ask if you can all please review this last chapter, even if you haven't reviewed before. Pleasem? xx**


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